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PHRONTISTERY 


Reprint  from  the 
University  of  Caufornia  Chronicle 

Volume  32,  No.  4 
October,  1930 


JOHN  WYCLIF'S  FREUDIAN  COMPLEX 


Because  of  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  controversy,  which  has 
filled  the  land  with  ponderous  volumes  of  invective,  one  hesitates 
to  point  out  another  case  of  cipher  use,  to  exhibit  an  even  more 
remarkable  instance  of  hidden  identity.  One  hesitates.  In  spite 
of  the  laborious  efforts  of  Mrs.  Gallup,  Dr.  Owen,  and  James 
Phinney  Baxter,  the  world  is  scarcely  convinced  that  the  brilliant 
Bacon  wrote  plays  attributed  to  a  Stratford  villager.  And  schools, 
always  notoriously  conservative,  still  teach  the  Shakespeare 
legend. 

How  much  less  readily,  then,  will  the  world,  ever  slow  to  alter 
its  opinion,  accept  the  statement  that  John  Wyclif,  fourteenth- 
century  divine,  wrote  many  of  the  less  sedate  stories  collected 
under  the  title  Canterbury  Tales  and  usually  attributed  to  Geoffrey 
Chaucer?  And  yet  such  is  the  case.  A  cipher  exists,  a  cipher 
clear,  convincing,  understandable,  calling  for  no  ever-turning 
wheel  such  as  Dr.  Owen  employed  in  his  Baconian  discoveries. 
Whether  all  of  Chaucer's  work  was  done  by  Wyclif  is  still  to  be 
determined,  but  the  cipher  exists  in  at  least  two  of  his  tales, 
that  of  the  Wyf  of  Bath  and  of  the  Merchant. 

All  that  is  necessary  to  enable  one  to  discover  this  secret 
code  is  a  Gallup-like  patience,  an  uncut  edition  of  the  poems 
attributed  to  Chaucer,  a  willing  eye,  mathetical  precision,  and 
a  key  to  the  cipher — no  more.  Then,  upon  investigation,  crops 
out  a  startling  message  written  as  clear  as  ever  Bacon  wrote  his 
private  history  and  that  of  the  Virgin  Queen  throughout  the 
pages  of  Shakespeare's  plays. 


PHRONTISTERY  493 

Before  disclosing  the  cipher  and  its  workings,  however,  it 
seems  wise  to  discuss  the  nature  of  a  cipher  and  the  psychological 
attitude  it  is  necessary  to  maintain  when  attempting  cipher  work. 
A  cipher,  a  gentle,  unobtrusive,  retiring  entity,  must  be  met  half- 
way by  the  eager  scholar.  Naturally,  no  cipher  is  going  to  obtrude 
itself,  else  would  it  be  a  sign-bpard.  It  is  therefore  necessary 
that  the  discoverer  put  himself  into  what — in  spirit  world  par- 
lance— might  be  called  a  ''communicable  frame  of  mind."  But 
even  after  the  student  has  acquired  this  frame  of  mind  there 
are  certain  steps  in  the  procedure  of  becoming  cipher-conscious. 
First,  the  investigator  must  imaginatively  enter  the  mind  of  his 
subject;  then  he  must  contemplate  that  individual's  situation. 
Second,  he  must  divine  intuitively  the  subject's  probable  repres- 
sions and  his,  necessarily  secretive,  outbreaks.  Such  a  sympa- 
thetic procedure  is  essential  before  scientific  investigation  can  be 
begun. 

In  the  course  of  making  the  recent  startling  discovery  of 
Wyclif's  authorship  of  certain  of  the  Canterbury  Tales,  the  writer 
followed  scrupulously  the  steps  outlined  above.  A  "commun- 
icable frame  of  mind"  was  first  induced.  Second,  Wyclif  became 
a  subject  for  concentrated  contemplation.  Intricate  as  all  thought 
is,  yet  it  is  possible  to  give  the  main  outline  of  that  contemplative 
period.  First,  it  will  be  recalled,  the  investigator  must  enter  the 
mind  of  his  subject.  Days  were  spent  upon  this  first  step.  With 
what  result?  Wyclif  emerges  an  austere  and  lonely  man  living 
in  the  masculine  society  of  Oxford.  There,  preaching  and  de- 
nouncing the  corruption  of  the  church,  he  centers  his  mind  upon 
the  lax  lives  of  the  friars  (named  by  him  the  ''children  of  Cain"). 
Such  denunciation  demands  investigation  of  the  evil  lives  about 
him.  He  discovers  many  an  Eve  corrupting  the  celibates,  many 
a  "celibate"  unknown  to  chastity.  The  result  of  this  fixation  of 
mind  naturally  increases  his  consciousness  of  sex. 

At  this  point  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  next  step  in  the 
procedure:  a  debate  as  to  the  probable  repressions  endured.  It  is 
a  truism  that  complete  repression  is  practically  unknown.  Sub- 
limation of  the  biologic  urge  is,  however,  not  uncommon  in  liter- 
ature past  and  present.  Could  Wyclif  have  sublimated  his  re- 
pressed longings?  His  sermons  were  consulted.  Those  sermons 
show  no  struggling  sex  consciousness,  no  sublimation  of  desire. 

Then  comes  the  third,  perhaps  the  most  important  and  most 
delicate   step   in   the   investigation:   intuitive   divination  of  the 


494  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  CHRONICLE 

person's  necessarily  secretive  outbreak  or  outbreaks.  Since  his 
own  life  and  signed  writings  are  impeccable,  it  is  evident  that 
Wyclif  must  have  reached  for  artistic  sublimation.  The  obvious 
thing  is  to  look  to  the  literature  of  his  period  in  order  to  discover 
what  he  must  have  written  and  how  he  must  have  concealed  the 

fact. 

The  fourth  step  is  a  simple  one.  In  considering  the  literature 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  what  figure  does  one  find  that  stands 
triumphantly,  predominantly,  unashamedly  for  sex?  At  once  one 
recalls  the  Wyf  of  Bath. 

Housbondes  at  chirche-dore  she  hadde  fyve 
Withouten  oother  compaignye  in  youthe 

What  an  appealing  figure  to  a  celibate!  What  an  unorthodox 
rebel  to  the  churchman!  What  a  relaxing  holiday  to  the  moralist! 
Naturally  it  is  to  her  prologue  and  tale  one  would  look  if  he 
suspected  code  possibilities  connected  with  Wyclif's  name. 

Before  giving  the  code  which  reveals  without  question  Wyclif's 
audacious  portrayal  of  this  sensual,  worldly  woman,  it  is  necessary 
to  remind  the  reader  that  no  complicated  code  equal  to  that  de- 
coded by  Mrs.  Gallup  could  be  expected  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury. Wyclif  was  a  busy  man.  He  had  no  time  amid  his  more 
onerous  duties  to  wrap  his  Freudian  outbreak  in  all  the  alphabetic 
trappings  and  upper  and  lower  case  concealment  used  by  Bacon. 
In  Wyclif  we  find  a  straightforward  code  based  upon  (1)  his  own 
initial,  fV^  (2)  placement  of  capitals,  (3)  vowels  surrounding  the 
letter  to  be  decoded,  and  (4)  the  number  27.  Why  27?  Nothing 
more  natural  when  one  comprehends  the  method  that  he  uses. 
Aside  from  what  I  shall  call  the  warning  W  there  are  27  letters 
in  the  heading  of  the  prologue:  "Prologue  of  the  Wywts  Tale  of 
Bath.'*  fV  indicates  that  a  code  exists.  The  27  letters  in  the 
heading  indicate  that  the  27th  letter  of  the  first  line  and  some 
certain  letter  in  every  27th  line  thereafter  will  contain  a  letter 
or  letters  to  be  de-coded  unless  several  warning  Ws  occur.  The 
number  of  ff^s  in  any  27th  line  will  indicate  the  number  of 
27-line  units  to  be  omitted  before  further  de-coding  is  to  be  done. 
Below  is  given  in  separate  columns  the  line  number,  the  letter 
number,  the  quoted  line,  the  de-coded  letter.  From  here  on  the 
writer  will  let  John  Wyclif  speak  for  himself,  though  for  the  reader 
unaccustomed  to  fourteenth-century  spelling  it  is  necessary  to 
add  that  J,  Y,  and  I  are  used  interchangeably. 


Line 

Letter 

No. 

No. 

1 

27 

27 

27 

54 

1 

81 

1 

108 

4 

135 

23 

PHRONTISTERY  495 

De-coded 
Quotation  letter 

Experience,  though  noon  author/te  I 

But  wel  I  woot  expres  withoute  \Yq  Y  or  J 

Oi  shewed  Lameth  and  of  bigamye  O 

/7e  wolde  that  ever  wight  were  such  as  he  H 

(3  warning  Ws  indicate  that  3  letters  occur  before  the 
one  to  be  de-coded.) 

But  A''at  at  every  wight  he  sholde  go  selle  N 

But  I  seye  noght  that  every  W\g\vt  is  holde  W 

(In  135  warning  JV  is  set  between  vowels.) 

162  27         At  this  sentence  me  lykith  everY  deel  Y 

187  20         But  yet  I  pray  to  al  this  Companye  C 

(In  187  demonstrative  "this"  and  vowel  after  letter  to 
be  de-coded  indicate  C.) 

216  28         That  many  a  night  they  songen  *weiZ,awey*  L 

(Note  here  in  216  that  L  is  the  27th  letter  minus  the 
warning  fV.) 

243         4-5       And  IF  I  have  a  gossib  or  a  freend  IF 

(In  line  243  "if"  before  capital  and  the  strengthening/ 
in  "freend"  indicating  that  F  as  well  as  /  is  to  be  de- 
coded shows  the  letters  clearly.) 

270  As  selstow,  that  wo\  been  with  oute  make 

(Line  270  three  W's  followed  by  vowels  and  one  used  in 
completion  of  word  preceded  by  a  vowel  indicates  a 
break  to  the  next  part,  and  predicts  a  fourth  W.) 

The  next  section  begins  with  the  title: 

Here  Beginnith  the  Tale  of  the  ^yf  of  Bathe 

(There  are  34  letters  minus  the  warning  W.  Since  3 
warning  Ws  occurred  in  the  last  used  line  in  the  Wyf's 
prologue  and  a  fV  occurrs  in  the  title  of  the  tale,  it  is 
evident  not  only  that  W  is  the  next  letter  to  be  de- 
coded, but  that  it  will  occur  after  four  letters.  Note 
that  34  now  replaces  the  27  of  the  earlier  portion.) 

34  5         And  s^ich  pursuit  un-to  the  king  Arthour  W 

68        5,  10,      Two  c/^eatu/^es  accoi^dinge  in-fe/?e  R 

15,  25  (Repetition  and  number  sequence  made  R  obvious  de- 

coding letter.) 


496  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  CHRONICLE 

Line     Utter  De-coded 

No.        No.  Quotation  letter 

102  9        He  loved  h/r  most  and  trusted  h/V  also  I 

(Line  102  presents  a  difficulty  that  as  yet  has  not 
solved  itself  satisfactorily.  Consultation  upon  this  line 
has  delayed  the  de-coding.  It  is  thought  that  Wyclif, 
returning  absentmindedly,  as  he  does  below  to  27  has 
here  taken  2  and  7  to  make  9.) 

136  27        Of  ladies  four  and  twenty  and  yeT  mo  T 

(Similar  vowels  beginning  and  ending  line  indicate  that 
not  one  but  two  34  line  units  should  be  omitted.) 

204  32        For  goddes  love,  as  cheer  a  newe  requesTe  T 

(Line  204  again  offers  difficulties,  but  it  seems  evidtnt 
that  the  two  d*s  are  counted  twice;  the  line  number 
being,  then,  the  de-coding  number  34.) 

238  W//y  fare  ye  tH\s  wit//  me  t//is  firste  nig//t  H 

(Repetition  makes  H  the  obvious  letter.) 

272  20        Ful  selde  up  ryseth  by  h/s  branches  smale  I 

(Five  H's  in  the  line  above  indicates  that  H  is  warning 
letter;  hence  the  letter  following  it  is  the  de-coded  letter.) 

306       12-13     Thy  gentille^'se  cometh  fro  god  allone  S 

(In  line  306  the  doubling  of  S  and  the  use  of  vowels 
on  either  side  indicates  it  as  letter  for  de-coding.) 

340  9        A  ful  greeT  bringer  out  of  bisinesse  T 

(T  is  indicated  by  significant  doubling  of  vowels 
before  it.) 

374  16        My  Wdy /^nd  my  love /^nd  wyf  so  dere  A 

(In  line  374  the  writer  has  debated  between  A  and  Y  as 
the  proper  de-coding  letter,  but  the  position  of  A 
(twice  initial  letters)  gives  A  prior  rights  over  Y.) 

408       27-28     God  s^nd^  h^m  som^  v^ray  pesteLEnce.  LE 

(This,  the  last  line  in  the  story,  shows  again  Wyclif's 
forgetfulness  in  the  use  of  27,  the  decoding  letter  in 
part  one.  The  unusual  repetition  of  E  indicates  that  it, 
too,  is  to  be  dc-coded.) 

The  reader  who  has  followed  thus  far  will  find  that  the  message 
left  by  Wyclif  reads:  I  JOHN  WYCLIF  WRIT  THIS  TALE. 
To  the  writer  this  statement  seemed  conclusive,  but  at  the  end 
of  the  story  occurs  one  of  those  seemingly  needless  repetitions, 
"Here  endeth  the  Wyves  Tale  of  Bathe,"  a  repetition,  however, 
fraught   with   meaning.    When  the  letters  are  counted,  29  in 


PHRONTISTERY  497 

number,  their  significance  becomes  apparent.  Counting  back- 
ward twenty-nine  lines  from  the  end  is  John  Wyclif's  boast — a 
boast  that  has  waited  until  the  year  1930  for  fulfillment.  In  this 
boast  we  see  Wyclif's  certainty  that  some  eye  will  discover  his 
cipher,  that  a  later  age  will  reward  his  sublimation  of  the  lusts  of 
the  flesh  by  a  posthumous  fame.  In  addition,  then,  to  the  de- 
coded statement  discussed  above  he  has  placed  in  the  29th  line 
from  the  end: 

"THANNE  HAVE  I  GETE  OF  YOW  MAISTRYE" 

It  is  true  that  he  concludes  the  line  with  a  misleading  "quod 
she,"  but  gives  the  boast  itself  the  special  significance  of  quotation 
marks. 

All  honor  to  John  Wyclif,  sore  beset  with  Freudian  complexes, 
who,  cloaked  by  the  name  of  Chaucer,  gave  vent  to  his  uncon- 
scious in  tales  lacking  perhaps  in  clerical  propriety  but  rich  in 
that  humanity  that  makes  the  whole  world — even  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon-kin.  May  his  boast  find  fulfillment  in  a  tardy  recog- 
nition of  his  artistic  genius,  and  may  his  cipher,  simple  to  the  point 
of  childishness,  find  general  credence! 

LUCIA  B.  MIRRIELEES. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


•••  »  •*  •  .•< 


I  «  r    J    "   c      • 


QUEEN   ELIZABETH 

From  an  original  crayon  drawing  by  F.  Zuccero,  made  in  London  in  1575 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY 
PROBLEMS 

THE  AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE 
SHAKESPEARE  WORKS 

AN  EXPOSITION  OF  ALL  POINTS  AT  ISSUE,  FROM 
THEIR  INCEPTION  TO  THE  PRESENT  MOMENT 

BY 

JAMES  PHINNEY  BAXTER 

WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

i^he  0itaer?itie  ^vt0  Cambrib0e 

1917 


/ 


~7^ 


COPYRIGHT,    I915,    BY  JAMES    PHINNEY    BAXTER 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  September  iqij 

Second  Edition 
Published  February  tqij 


o  •*  ^    ^*  ',    ,*    *"   • 


I    DEDICATE 
THIS   BOOK   TO    MY   WIFE 

IN  WHOSE 

PRESENCE  IT  WAS  WRITTEN,  YET  WHO 

BEFORE    IT  CAME   FROM   THE   PRESS 

LEFT  ME  ALONE 


The  three  important  things  Lord  Palmerston 
was  rejoiced  to  see,  —  "The  reintegration  of 
Italy,  the  unveiling  of  the  mystery  of  China,  and 
the  explosion  of  the  Shakespeare  illusions." 

The  Glory  of  God  is  to  conceal  a  thing  —  as  if 
the  Divine  Majesty  took  delight  to  hide  his 
works.  Bacon. 

Silence  were  the  best  celebration  of  that  which 
I  mean  to  commend.  My  praise  shall  be  dedi- 
cated to  the  mind  itself,  —  Mente  Fidebor,  by  the 
mind  I  shall  be  seen.  Ibid. 

Read  not  to  contradict  and  to  confute 
Nor  to  believe  and  take  for  granted; 
Nor  to  find  talk  and  discourse 
But  to  weigh  and  consider. 

Ibid. 

For  my  name  and  memory,  I  leave  it  to  men's 
charitable  speeches,  and  to  foreign  nations,  and 
the  next  ages.  Ibid. 

I  returned,  and  saw  under  the  sun,  that  the  race 
is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong, 
neither  yet  bread  to  the  wise,  nor  yet  riches  to 
men  of  understanding,  nor  yet  favor  to  men  of 
skill,  but  TIME  and  CHANCE  happeneth  to 
them  all. 


TO  THE  READER 

Although  much  has  been  written  upon  the  authorship  of 
the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  it  has  been  impossible  hitherto 
for  readers  to  obtain  a  comprehensive  understanding  of  the 
subject  without  an  excursion  into  fields  of  controversy  of  for- 
bidding extent.  It  has  seemed  to  me,  therefore,  a  worthy 
task  to  present  to  them  in  a  single  volume  a  critical  study  of 
the  entire  subject,  and,  also,  a  review  of  the  work  of  fellow 
students  who  have  preceded  me.  To  visualize  my  subject  more 
vividly  to  them  I  have  illustrated  it  pictorially,  using  much 
of  my  material  as  it  was  originally  produced,  though  inar- 
tistic ;  some  of  the  portraits,  for  instance,  being  from  photo- 
graphs of  old  and  somewhat  defaced  canvases,  which  could  not 
have  been  reengraved  without  impairing  their  character,  and 
many  of  the  minor  illustrations  from  ancient  books  printed 
when  wood  engraving  was  a  rude  art.  In  my  treatment  of  oppo- 
nents I  hope  that  I  have  not  held  them  in  too  light  esteem, 
fully  realizing  that  what  we  often  believe  to  be  principles  and 
valorously  battle  for,  not  infrequently  turn  out  to  be  but 
opinions,  and  that  beyond  them  may  be  a  wide  field  of  debat- 
able ground.  What  I  have  written,  however,  is  the  result  of 
conviction  founded  upon  judgment.  If  this  is  deficient  it  should 
be  apparent  to  the  reader. 

James  Phinney  Baxter. 

Portland,  Maine,  191 5. 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION 

To  my  Critics: 

When  I  wrote  The  Greatest  of  Literary  Problems,  I  was 
hoping  to  escape  the  charge  of  offensive  dogmatism,  inasmuch 
as,  when  expressing  my  own  opinion  upon  a  point  at  issue, 
I  was  careful  to  observe  that  I  submitted  it  to  the  judgment 
of  my  reader,  and  acknowledged  in  my  Preface  that  I  realized 
that  what  we  often  believe  to  be  principles  for  which  we  val- 
orously  battle,  not  infrequently  turn  out  to  be  but  opinions 
beyond  which  may  be  a  wide  field  of  debatable  ground.  In- 
stead, however,  of  yielding  me  the  credit  of  at  least  an  at- 
tempt to  be  fair,  some  irreconcilable  opponents  of  my  thesis 
have  bestowed  upon  me  names  unworthy  to  be  applied,  by 
any  wayfarer  in  this  world  of  doubt,  to  another.  To  those 
who  have  resorted  to  abuse  and  caviled  at  trivial  points  in 
my  treatment  of  what  I  believe  to  be  an  important  subject, 
I  make  no  rejoinder,  hoping  that  eventually  they  will  give  it 
due  attention  and  show,  if  possible,  wherein  I  have  erred  in 
my  exposition  of  it. 

It  is  to  those  open-minded  students  who  have  really  read 
my  book  and  expressed  approval  of  its  "first  three  hundred 
and  ninety  pages  or  so,"  but  disapproval  of  those  treating  of 
Bacon's  authorship  of  works  which  have  been  accredited  to 
others,  and  especially  of  ciphers,  that  I  address  myself.  I 
doubt  if  they  have  sufficiently  considered  the  fact  that  Francis 
Bacon  was  the  inventor  of  a  cipher  for  concealing  messages 
in  books,  which  he  has  described  in  his  De  Augmentis  Scien- 
tiarum,  and  that  there  has  been  published  a  large  body  of 
literary  matter,  comprising  historical  and  dramatic  works, 
as  well  as  an  English  version  of  the  Iliad,  which  it  is  claimed 
were  found  concealed  in  cipher,  not  only  in  Bacon's  acknowl- 
edged works,  but  also  in  the  first  "Shakespeare"  Folio.  This 

ix 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION 

claim  is  either  true,  a  fake,  or  a  delusion.  Partisans  for  or 
against  will  not  determine  this,  but  scholars,  who  will  find 
their  most  attractive  field  in  the  Iliad  should  it  be  published 
in  full,  with  cipher  illustrations,  and  a  lucid  exposition  of  the 
method  of  extracting  the  cipher  from  the  works  in  which  it 
is  claimed  to  be  concealed. 

In  attempting  to  present  to  my  readers  an  exhaustive  study 
of  my  subject,  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  devote  due  space 
to  ciphers,  and  I  am  hoping  that  my  unprejudiced  readers 
will  carefully  reexamine  this  part  of  The  Greatest  of  Literary 
Problems.  It  is  interesting  to  note  the  constantly  increas- 
ing attention  which  is  being  given  to  Bacon's  authorship  of 
the  "Shakespeare"  works.  A  department  of  The  Riverbank 
Research  Laboratories  of  Geneva,  Illinois,  among  its  other 
work  has  begun  an  investigation  of  Bacon's  "  Biliteral  Cipher 
in  his  Philosophical  Works,"  and  those  bearing  the  name 
"Shakespeare."  The  information  gathered  in  this  branch  of 
research  is  being  used  for  the  instruction  of  students,  and 
several  of  the  principal  educational  institutions  of  the  coun- 
try have  been  invited  to  send  representatives  to  Chicago, 
free  of  expense  to  them,  for  the  purpose  of  examining  the 
work  which  has  already  been  accomplished.  A  local  school 
with  several  scholarships  has  been  established  for  students, 
with  a  correspondence  branch  for  those  who  desire  to  study 
at  home,  and  a  prize  of  five  hundred  dollars  off^ered  for  the 
three  best  dissertations  on  one  or  more  phases  of  the  subject. 
Moreover,  "The  Academy  of  Baconian  Literature"  has  been 
incorporated,  and  a  course  of  illustrated  lectures  on  "  Ciphers 
•in  Elizabethan  Literature"  is  to  be  delivered  in  various  cities 
in  the  United  States. 

James  Phinney  Baxter 

Mackworth  Island,  191 7  • 


CONTENTS 

Prologue xix 

Why  and  how  the  Shakspere-Bacon  Controversy  came 
about 

I  i 

The  Setting  of  the  Stage i 

The  Elizabethan  Age  and  its  Influence  in  shaping  the 
Thoughts  and  Acts  of  the  Men  of  the  Time 

II 

The  Theme 19 

The  Greatest  Birth  of  Time — The  "  Shakespeare"  Works  and 
how  they  have  been  regarded  by  Commentators  and  Critics 

m 

The  Ghost  of  Hamlet 32 

William  Shakspere  of  Stratford  —  In  London  —  His  Favorite 
Role 

IV 

The  Greatest  of  Literary  Problems       ....     65 

All  that  is  known  of  him  and  supposed  to  be  known  of  him  — 
An  Attempt  to  ascertain  if  the  Author's  Face  shows  in  his  Off- 
spring—  As  seen  by  Contemporaries — The  Quartos — The 
Folios  —  Henslowe's  Diary  —  Plays  excluded  from  First 
Folio  —  Second,  Third,   and  Fourth  Folios  —  Blind  Guides 

V 
A  Study  of  other  *' Shakespeare''  Plays       .        .       .   163 
Do  they  reflect  the  same  Face? 

VI 

Mythical  Relics 224 

A  Criticism  of  all  the  Relics  in  Existence  accredited  to  the 
Actor  with  Comparative  Illustrations 

xi 


CONTENTS 

VII 

A  Crucial  Question 269 

An  Essay  in  Graphology  —  Facsimiles  from  Will  and  other 
Documents  —  A  Critic  criticized,  etc. 

VIII 

Francis  Bacon,  Viscount  St.  Albans,  Baron  Verulam 

OF  Verulam 297 

A  Review  of  his  Life  from  the  Various  Angles  of  his  Biogra- 
phers from  Rawley  to  Spedding  —  His  Role  —  The  Promus 

—  The  Northumberland  Manuscript 

IX 

The  Sonnets 378 

The  Great  Assizes  holden  in  Parnassus 

X 

The  Rose  Cross 392 

A  Study  of  the  Cult  and  its  Bearing  on  the  Secret  of  Bacon's 
Life 

XI 

Symbolism 405 

What  it  was  and  the  Use  it  anciently  performed  —  Water- 
Marks —  Cryptograms  — Title-Pages  —  Anagrams  — Acros- 
tics 

XII 
Anonymous  and  Pseudonymous  Authorship   .        .        .436 
Edmund  Spenser 

XIII 

A  Literary  Syncrisis 464 

Peele  —  The  Arraignment  of  Paris  —  David  and  Bethsabe 

XIV 
Masks 479 

Robert    Greene  —  Christopher    Marlowe  —  Thomas    Kyd 

—  Burton 

xii 


CONTENTS 

XV 

Thumb  Marks 489 

Curious  Proofs  determining  the  Authorship  of  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works 

XVI 
Ciphers 521 

The  Word-Cipher  —  Method  of  Applying  — The  Biliteral 
Cipher  —  The  Ciphers  in  Bacon's  Works — The"Argenis" 
—  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex  —  The  Queen's  Ring 

Epilogue     .        .        .        .      • 615 

A  Summary  showing  where  the  Actor  and  the  Courtier  were, 
and  what  they  were  doing  at  Stated  Periods  of  their  Lives 

Bibliography    .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .        .  633 

Index 665 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Elizabeth  Tudor Frontispiece 

The    Droeshout,    The    Felton,    The    Chandos,  The 
Janssen  Shakspere 229 

The  Ashbourne,  The  Grafton,  The  Zucchero,  The 
Sanders  Shakspere     . 235 

The    Zoust,    The    Stratford,    The    Eli    House,  The 
Flower  Shakspere 237 

The  Jennings,  The  Burn,  The  Winstanley,  The  Bel- 
mont Hall  Shakspere 239 

Shakspere  Marriage  Picture 241 

The  Becker  and  Stratford  Death  Masks     .        .        .   243 

Original  Bust,  Dugdale;  Rowe;  Present  Bust   .        .   245 

Overlaid  Portraits  of  the  Actor  and  Bacon      .  249,  251 

Inscription  on  the  Tombstone  .....  252,  522 

Stratford  House,  1788;  1806;  1834;  1847;  1914  .  253,  255,  257 

The  Seal  Ring 263 

The  Furness  Gloves 264 

Shakspere  Signatures 269 

Separate  Letters  in  the  Four  Authentic  Signatures   270 

Alternate    Lines    from    Bacon's    Promus   and   Mon- 
taigne's Essays 273 

Specimens  of  Bacon's  Handwriting  .        .        .        .  274 

Facsimile  Signature  of  the  Actor  and  Nicholas       .   275 

Facsimile  Exhibits  from  the  Will  .        .        .       279-81-83 

Facsimile  of  Signatures  of  Francis  Collins        .       .   288 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Bacon's  Italian  Signature  ......  294 

Francis  Bacon  at  Twelve;  at  Eighteen;  at  Middle  Age  297 

Facsimile  of  Seal  of  Thomas  Bushell  .       .       .336 

Title-Page  of  Northumberland  MSS 372 

Effigy  on  Bacon's  Tomb 377 

Title-Page  Great  Assizes 387 

Dramatis  Persons 389 

Paper  Marks,  Cryptic  Head-Pieces         .       .       .  409,412 

Time  revealing  Truth 415 

Fortune  casting  down  the  Actor 416 

Emblem  of  the  Hand  and  Curtain 417 

Title-Page  Cryptomenytices 418 

Cipher  Key .        .  419 

Facsimile  Title-Page  in  Bacon's  Henry  VII       .       .  420 

Facsimile  Title-Page  in  Montaigne's  Essays      .       .  422 

Facsimile  Title-Page  in  Sermones  Fideles,  1641       .  424 

Facsimile  Title-Page  in  De  Augmentis,  1645      .       .  425 

Bacon's  Notes  to  Plato,  compared  with  his  Notes  in 
Montaigne's  Essays,  1588         .     ,.       .       .       .       .  423 

Nemesis  with  Bridle 424 

Title-Page  to  Spenser  Folio  of  1611      .       .       .       .  427 

Spenser's  Tomb     ....  442 

Portraits  of  Spenser  (the  Kinnoull;  the  Wilson)   .  460 

Title-Page  Bright's  Melancholy 487 

Map  of  Bohemia  i6th  Century 495 

In  Dies  Meliora 517 

Bacon's  Alphabet  in  Two  Letters  ....     531-32 

xvi 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  "I.M."  Poem,  infolding  Bacon's  Message,  Fac- 
simile        534 

The  Same  with  German  Message  infolded  by  Author  538 

Enlarged  Letters  of  the  Two  Fonts  found  in  the 
Poem 539 

Enlarged  Alphabet  of  the  Two  Fonts  found  in  the 
DiGGEs'  Poem 540 

Sonnets  xxxii,  xxxvi,  xxxviii,  with  Poem  in  Cipher 

INFOLDED  54i~43 

Mallock's  Illustrations 576,  578 

Robert  Devereux 593 

Robert  Dudley 595 

Inscription  in  Beauchamp  Tower 611 

The  Warner  and  Queen's  Rings 614 

Colophon 631 

Note  to  Bibliography  in  Bacon's  Own  Biformed  Alpha- 

'     BET    USED    in    HIS    De    AuGMENTIS,    INFOLDING    CiPHER 

Message 634 


PROLOGUE 

It  was  a  custom  of  old  to  introduce  a  play  with  a  prologue, 
in  which  was  struck  the  keynote  of  the  theme,  to  attune  the 
sympathies  of  the  auditors  to  the  scheme  of  the  drama  about 
to  be  unfolded  to  view;  so  I  venture  to  follow  the  ancient 
fashion,  since 

All  the  world  's  a  stage 
And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players. 

The  action  of  our  drama  lies  within  the  meager  compass  of 
a  half-century,  between  the  meridian  splendor  of  the  last 
Tudor  reign  and  the  waning  of  that  of  the  first  Stuart,  a  period 
crowded  with  events  of  more  real  import  to  the  English  race 
than  any  other  in  its  annals.  It  was  an  era  of  feudal  splendor 

—  emblazoned  banners  —  plumes  —  purple  and  cloth  of  gold 

—  the  glint  and  clangor  of  steel  —  ruthless  emblems  of  auto- 
cratic rule.  It  was,  too,  one  of  cruelty  and  corruption;  of  an 
illiteracy  hampered  by  a  rude  jargon  of  popular  speech,  the 
survival  of  a  less  civilized  age.  As  the  pageant  in  imagination 
sweeps  on  before  our  eyes  amid  the  moil  and  murk  of  the 
streets,  riding  high  on  the  tumultuous  waves  of  applause  from 
the  mob,  in  whose  shadowy  minds  it  seemed  a  realization  of 
the  visions  of  old  romance,  of  which  they  had  glimpses  in 
filthy  inn-yards,  and  the  low  theaters  in  the  purlieus  of  Shore- 
ditch  and  Moor-fields,  we  wonder  if  this  tinsel  can  be  trans- 
muted into  gold,  this  rude  speech  transformed  into  the  ex- 
pression of  a  divine  ideal. 

Outside  of  these  hopeless  conditions,  rumors  of  wars,  of 
Jesuit  plots,  of  Scotch  intrigues,  filled  the  public  mind  with 
apprehension  of  evil;  for  there  was  no  time  when  the  black 
shadow  of  Spain's  mailed  hand  did  not  dim  the  glow  of 
English  firesides;  no  time  in  which  the  suspicion  of  French 

xix 


PROLOGUE 

dissimulation  did  not  give  edge  to  the  fears  of  an  entente  with 
the  ogre  of  the  Escurial. 

Yet  this  epoch  had  its  heroes  —  Drake,  who  through  fire 
and  blood  encompassed  the  world ;  Gilbert,  who  sang  his  swan 
song  amid  tempest  and  gloom,  triumphant  in  the  thought  that 
heaven  was  as  near  him  as  in  his  beloved  Devonshire;  Fro- 
bisher,  who  drove  his  frail  keel  through  the  ice-locked  portals 
of  Boreal  seas ;  and  scores  of  others,  who,  on  sea  and  land, 
proved  the  invincible  courage  of  the  English  heart.  Those  in 
power,  however,  paid  them  scant  heed,  and  they  played  their 
great  roles,  and  made  their  exits,  leaving  no  deep  impress 
upon  the  minds  of  their  contemporaries,  except,  perhaps, 
Drake,  who  struck  Spain  such  a  staggering  blow  that  it  stirred 
the  enthusiasm  of  his  phlegmatic  countrymen,  though  his 
stingy  sovereign  haggled  over  its  cost. 

However  imperfect  and  inadequate  this  outline  of  a  remark- 
able epoch,  it  seems  beyond  credence  that  it  held  a  capability 
of  reformation ;  yet  it  is  true  that  during  its  existence  a  remark- 
able transformation  took  place  in  the  thought  and  expression 
of  the  English  mind.  The  language  of  Tudor  England,  defiled 
by  the  barbarisms  of  a  rude  age,  began  to  purge  itself  of  its 
crudities,  and  to  enrich  its  vocabulary  with  new  vehicles  of 
thought,  giving  it  flexibility,  and  enlarging  its  scope  of  expres- 
sion. To  realize  what  was  accomplished  within  the  brief 
period  we  have  named,  it  will  be  suggestive  to  compare  the 
King  James  version  of  one  of  the  psalms,  or  Bacon's  "New 
Atlantis,''  with  this  excerpt  from  the  dedication  of  a  poem  to 
Lord  Wilton  in  1576,  by  George  Gascoigne,  one  of  the  fore- 
most literary  men  of  his  day:  — 

I  haue  loytered  (my  lorde)  I  confesse,  I  haue  lien  streaking  me 
(like  a  lubber)  when  the  sunne  did  shine,  and  now  striue  al  in 
vaine  to  loade  the  carte  when  it  raineth.  I  regarded  not  my 
comelynes  in  the  May-moone  of  my  yvthe,  and  yet  now  I  stand 
prinking  me  in  the  glasse  when  the  crowes  feete  Is  growen  vnder 
mine  eie. 

XX 


PROLOGUE 

Or  this  from  a  letter  of  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1594:  — 

What  danger  it  bredes  a  king  to  glorifie  to  hie  and  to  soudanly 
a  boy  of  yeres  and  counduict,  whos  untimely  age  for  discretion 
bredes  rasche  consent  to  undesent  actions.  Suche  speke  or  the 
way,  and  attempt  or  the  considar.  The  waight  of  a  kingly  state 
is  of  more  poix  than  the  shalownis  of  a  rasche  yonge  mans  hed 
can  waigh,  therfor  I  trust  that  the  causeles  zele  that  you  have 
borne  the  hed  of  this  presumption  shal  rather  cary  you  to  extirpe 
so  ingratius  a  roote,  in  finding  so  sowre  fruite  to  springe  of  your 
many  favors  ivel-acquited,  rather  than  to  suffer  your  goodnis  to 
be  abused  with  his  many  skusis  for  coulors  of  his  good  men- 
ings.^ 

We  may  well  inquire  how  this  change  was  inaugurated  and 
carried  to  a  successful  issue.  It  could  not  have  sprung  up  and 
come  to  fruition  by  dissociated  individual  effort.  A  presiding 
genius  was  required  to  foster  and  direct  its  growth.  Across  the 
Channel  it  was  Ronsard,  who,  designing  to  regenerate  the 
language  of  France,  and  perpetuate  it  in  his  own  literary  pro- 
ductions, associated  with  himself  others  whom  he  encouraged 
to  like  effort.  Who  in  England  could  have  undertaken  this 
great  work .?  What  was  its  beginning  ?  If  we  attune  our  ear 
to  distinguish  amid  the  prevailing  dissonance  its  primal  note, 
we  shall  unmistakably  trace  it  to  the  oaten  pipe  of  the  gentle 
Colin,  whose  haunting  melody  holds  our  attention,  and, 
following  these  strains  with  awakening  sense,  we  shall  hear 
them  reechoed  until  they  culminate  in  that  symphony  of  the 
greatest  master  of  poetic  numbers,  the  author  of  "Lucrece," 
of  "Hamlet,"  and  of  the  "Sonnets." 

When,  however,  we  seek  the  inspired  mortals,  whom  we  are 
told  caught  the  sweet  strains  of  the  artless  Shepherd,  and 
came  singing  down  the  shining  steeps  of  Olympus  with  a  di- 
vine message  to  ennoble  their  fellowmen,  we  find  them  in  dens 
of  infamy,  the  tippling-shop,  the  gambling-hell,  the  brothel, 
and  are  moved  to  exclaim,  —  Such  a  paradox  is  monstrous ; 

^  Letters  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  James  VI,  p.  109.  Bruce,  London, 
1849. 

xxi 


PROLOGUE 

God  does  not  ordain  the  vilest  among  men  to  be  his  messen- 
gers of  peace  and  enlightenment  to  mankind : — and,  certainly, 
the  men  to  whom  our  pretentious  guides  have  introduced  us 
were  among  the  vilest  of  their  kind.  No  wonder  the  world 
is  awakening  to  the  necessity  of  a  higher  criticism  than  that 
with  which  it  has  hitherto  been  cloyed,  and  turning  to  one 
incomparable  genius,  who,  voicing  the  primal  strains  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Tudor  England,  bore  them  on  with  ever- 
swelling  majesty  to  the  close  of  the  grand  symphony  which 
ended  with  his  life.  This  great  genius  I  hope  to  show  was 
Francis  Bacon,  Baron  Verulam,  Viscount  St.  Albans.  Time 
was  when  I  should  have  dismissed  this  thesis  with  impatience, 
but  I  am  hoping  that  my  readers  will  weigh  the  evidence  I 
adduce  before  condemning  me  as  a  mere  theorist. 

It  will  be  objected  at  the  outset  that  Bacon  could  not  have 
written  that  great  body  of  philosophy,  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works,  and  others  to  which  we  have  alluded,  and  have  had 
any  time  left  to  perform  his  political  duties,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  common  affairs  of  life.  To  answer  this  I  cite  his  habit  of 
utilizing  his  time,  even  its  moments.  Those  intimately  associ- 
ated with  him  witness  to  this.  Says  Rawley:  *'He  would  ever 
interlace  a  moderate  relaxation  of  his  mind  with  his  studies,  as 
walking  or  taking  the  air  abroad  in  his  coach,  or  some  other 
befitting  recreation."  ^ 

Boener  and  Bushell,  both  his  amanuenses,  give  like  testi- 
mony. His  great  philosophical  works  were  written  in  an 
incomparably  short  space  of  time,  while  he  was  in  great  mental 
distress.  Says  Rawley:  "The  last  five  years  of  his  life  —  he 
employed  wholly  in  contemplation  and  study  —  in  which  time 
he  composed  the  greatest  part  of  his  books  and  writings,  both 
in  English  and  Latin."  ^ 

His  public  duties,  apparently  uncongenial,  occupied  but  a 
small  portion  of  his  time,  so  that  the  much  longer  time  which 
this  man  of  ceaseless  activity  had  to  devote  to  more  congenial 

1  Rawley's  Life^  p.  48.  ^  Ibid.^  p.  43. 

xxii 


I 


PROLOGUE 

pursuits  becomes  an  argument  in  favor  of  his  occupation  in 
other  than  philosophical  fields  of  labor.  Any  one  who  will 
carefully  study  his  various  Lives  will  be  convinced  that  he 
had  ample  time  to  produce  all  the  works  which  have  been 
ascribed  to  him,  not  excepting  the  poems  and  plays  known  as 
the  "Shakespeare"  Works.  If  it  were  necessary  I  could  cite 
many  examples  of  voluminous  authorship.  For  a  single 
instance,  Thomas  Heywood,  a  contemporary,  claimed  to  be 
the  author  of  two  hundred  plays  besides  much  other  literary 
work.  There  are  thirty-six  in  the  Folio. 

That  it  was  a  common  custom  for  authors  to  use  the  names 
or  initials  of  others  on  their  productions  cannot  be  questioned. 
Books,  too,  were  often  falsely  dated.  The  author  of  "The 
Arte  of  English  Poesie,"  published  in  1589,  says:  "I  know 
very  many  notable  Gentlemen  in  the  Court  that  have  written 
commendably,  and  suppressed  it  agayne,  or  els  sujffred  it  to  be 
publisht  without  their  owne  names  to  it,  as  if  it  were  a  dis- 
credit for  a  Gentleman  to  seeme  learned,  and  to  shew  himself 
amorous  of  any  learned  Art." 

Henry  Cuffe,  a  scholar  of  distinction,  not  wishing  to  use  his 
own  name  on  a  manuscript,  sent  it  to  a  correspondent  to  ask 
Greville  to  permit  him  to  publish  it  with  his  initials,  and  told 
his  correspondent  in  case  of  refusal  to  print  it  with  the  initials 
R.  B.,  which,  he  said,  "some  no  doubt  will  interpret  to  be 
Beale." 

"The  Historic  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  Mary  Stuart  Queene 
of  Scotland"  was  published  in  1624,  and  the  dedication  bore 
the  name  of  the  supposed  author,  Wil  Stranguage.  In  1636, 
in  a  second  edition,  the  same  dedication  bore  the  name  W. 
Udall.  Among  the  books  which  once  masqueraded  under 
assumed  names,  many  still  survive,  and  their  ghostly  authors 
grin  at  us  behind  their  false  masks  so  nicely  adjusted  to  them 
by  the  editors  of  biographical  dictionaries. 

Early  in  life  I  began  reading  the  "Shakespeare"  Works, 
very  likely  as  the  reader  did,  for  amusement,  and  in  time  came 

xxiii 


PROLOGUE 

to  realize,  as  no  doubt  the  reader  did,  that  they  were  written 
for  instruction,  the  amusement  serving  as  a  lure  to  lead  the 
mind  by  pleasant  paths  to  loftier  regions  of  philosophic 
thought.  This  revelation  of  a  loftier  motive  than  amusement 
in  these  remarkable  works  inevitably  awakens  in  all  a  desire 
to  become  acquainted  with  their  author.  The  result  is  disap- 
pointment. How,  it  is  asked,  is  it  possible  that  a  strolling 
player  to  an  ignorant  rabble  in  inn-yards,  or  the  London 
theater  as  it  is  described,  could  have  been  inspired  with  the 
ambition  to  promote  an  advancement  of  learning?  This  has 
been  the  question  of  reflective  minds  the  world  over,  and  they 
have  recorded  their  opinions. 

Said  the  German  critic,  Schlegel,  in  1808,  "Generally  speak- 
ing I  consider  all  that  has  been  said  about  him  personally  to 
be  a  mere  fable,  a  blind  extravagant  error."  And  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge,  in  18 11,  "What!  are  we  to  have  miracles  in 
sport?  Does  God  choose  idiots  by  whom  to  convey  divine 
truths  to  man?" 

Benjamin  Disraeli  wrote,  in  1837:  "*And  who  is  Shake- 
speare,' said  Cadurcis.  —  Did  he  write  half  the  plays  attrib- 
uted to  him  ?  Did  he  ever  write  a  single  whole  play  ?  I  doubt 
it."  And  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  declared  in  1838,  that  he 
could  not  "marry"  him  "to  his  verse,"  characterizing  his 
life  as  "obscure  and  profane."  ^  Said  Joseph  Hart,  in  1848: 
"He  was  not  the  mate  of  the  literary  characters  of  his  day, 
and  none  knew  it  better  than  himself.  It  is  a  fraud  upon 
the  world  to  thrust  his  surreptitious  fame  upon  us.  The  in- 
quiry will  be.  Who  were  the  able  literary  men  who  wrote  the 
dramas  imputed  to  him  ? "  And  William  H.  Furness,^  in  1866 : 
"  I  am  one  of  the  many  who  have  never  been  able  to  bring 
the  life  of  William  Shakespeare  and  the  plays  of  Shake- 
speare within  a  planetary  space  of  each  other;  are  there  any 
two  things  in  the  world  more  incongruous?  Had  the  plays 

^  Representative  Men^  p.  215.     Boston,  1866. 
2  The  father  of  the  literary  eheniste. 

xxiv 


I 


PROLOGUE 

come  down  to  us  anonymously,  had  the  labor  of  discover- 
ing the  author  been  imposed  upon  after  generations,  I  think 
we  could  have  found  no  one  of  that  day  but  F.  Bacon  to 
whom  to  assign  the  crown.  In  this  case  it  would  have  been 
resting  now  on  his  head  by  almost  common  consent?"  Said 
Edwin  P.  Whipple,  in  1869:  "To  this  individuality  we  tack 
on  a  universal  genius,  which  is  about  as  reasonable  as  it  would 
be  to  take  the  controlling  power  of  gravity  from  the  sun  and 
attach  it  to  one  of  the  asteroids."  And  Cardinal  Newman,  in 
1870:  "What  do  we  know  of  Shakespeare?  Is  he  much  more 
than  a  name,  vox  et  prceterea  nihil  ? "  The  same  year  James 
Russell  Lowell  wrote:  "Nobody  believes  any  longer  that 
immediate  inspiration  is  possible  in  modern  times;  and  yet 
everybody  seems  to  take  it  for  granted  of  this  one  man  Shake- 
speare"; and  so  on;  Gervinus,  Hawthorne,  Ruggles,  Dickens, 
Holmes,  Walt  Whitman,  Professor  Winchell,  Whittier,  Park- 
man;  it  would  require  a  large  volume  to  record  all  the  testi- 
mony of  this  nature,  and  I  adduce  the  foregoing  to  show  that 
more  than  a  century  ago,  students  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works, 
sjeeking  an  acquaintance  with  the  Stratford  actor,  realized 
how  impossible  it  was  for  him  to  have  been  their  author. 

This  feeling  extended  until  the  question  was  pressed,  in 
1848,  "Who  were  the  able  literary  men  who  wrote  the  dramas 
imputed  to  him?"  It  was  evident  to  most  critics  that  in  spite 
of  some  differences  of  style  they  were  the  product  of  one  mind. 
Who,  then,  was  this  great  literary  genius  ?  A  new  interest  was 
awakened  in  Elizabethan  literature.  Naturally  the  search 
began  with  dramatists  and  poets;  Marlowe  for  a  time  was 
discussed  and  dropped;  so  were  others.  Deeper  students, 
realizing  that  the  poetic  gems  in  the  works  which  charmed  so 
many  were  strung  on  a  precious  thread  of  philosophy,  sought 
a  poet  among  the  philosophers,  having  taken  a  hint  from 
Sydney  who  said:  "The  philosophers  of  Greece  durst  not  a 
long  time  appear  to  the  world  but  under  the  mask  of  poets. 
So  Thales,  Empedocles,  and  Parmenides  sang  their  national 

XXV 


PROLOGUE 

philosophy  in  verse.  So  did  Pythagoras  and  PhocyHdes  their 
moral  counsels." 

At  this  juncture  Spedding's  work  on  Bacon  was  published, 
in  which  it  was  seen  that  the  great  philosopher  applied  to  him- 
self the  now  famous  phrase,  "A  concealed  poet";  and  from 
this  time  attention  was  focused  upon  him,  and  the  sentiment 
of  thousands  outside  the  influence  of  the  Stratford  cult,  that 
there  was  but  one  man  in  England  to  whom  the  authorship  of 
the  "Shakespeare"  Works  could  be  assigned,  became  convic- 
tion. 

Spedding's  work  was  published  in  1857,  and  it  was  in  this 
year  that  Delia  Bacon  in  America,  and  William  Henry  Smith 
in  England,  simultaneously  published  the  two  pioneer  works 
which  opened  the  case  of  Bacon  vs,  Shakspere.^  Doubtless 
many  had  long  entertained  the  opinions  then  made  public, 
but  withheld  them,  unwilling  to  face  the  storm  of  ridicule  and 
abuse  which  threatened  their  announcement.  Smith  says  that 
he  formed  his  opinions  twenty  years  before  publishing  them, 
and  no  doubt  Miss  Bacon  had  matured  her  views  long  before 
giving  them  to  the  world.  She  was  a  woman  of  remarkable 
intellect,  a  profound  scholar,  and  merits  a  high  place  among 
the  literary  women  of  America ;  yet  she  and  Smith,  as  well  as 
Holmes,  Mrs.  Pott,  Reed,  and  other  faithful  and  conscien- 
tious students  who  have  followed  them,  have  been  viciously 
assailed  by  those  interested  in  Shaksperian  books  as  authors, 
owners  of  copyright,  their  friends,  and  would-be  friends ;  in 
fact,  they  have  suffered  the  usual  martyrdom  of  advocates  of 
new  truth  by  our  modern  Ephesians. 

Said  Lee,  "Why  should  Baconian  theorists  have  any  follow- 
ing outside  lunatic  asylums  ?"  Dana,  "The  Mattoid  flourishes 
in  America  because  we  have  so  large  a  proportion  of  half- 

*  The  spelling  of  the  actor's  name  is^so  variable  that  we  give,  in  all  quo- 
tations, the  forms  found  in  them.  When  referring  to  him  we  use  the  form 
adopted  by  Knight,  "  Shakspere,"  or  the  term  "  actor."  When  speaking  of  the 
"Works,"  we  use  the  form  "  Shakespeare,"  as  it  appeared  on  the  title-page  of 
the  First  Folio. 

xxvi 


PROLOGUE 

educated  minds/'  Churton  Collins,  "And  so  this  epidemic 
spreads  till  it  has  now  assumed  the  proportions,  and  many  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  Middle  Ages/'  A  writer  in  the 
"Literary  World"  calls  Mr.  Reed's  scholarly  books,  "A  posi- 
tive disgrace  to  literature/'  Brandes  says,  "A  troop  of  less  n 
than  half-educated  people  have  put  forth  the  doctrine  that 
Shakespeare  did  not  write  the  plays  and  poems  attributed  to 
him.  Here  it  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  raw  Americans  and 
fanatical  women."  Elze,  "The  so-called  Bacon  Theory  is  a 
disease  of  the  same  species  as  table-turning."  Townsend, 
"Dirty  work  requires  its  peculiar  instruments."  The  "Athe- 
naeum," "Mr.  Smith  denies  the  appropriation  of  Miss  Delia 
Bacon's  theory.  The  question  may  be  of  slight  importance 
which  of  two  individuals  first  conceived  a  crazy  notion." 
Fumivall  wrote  to  Reed,  "Providence  is  merciful,  and  the 
U.S.  folk  are  tolerant;  you'd  have  been  strung  up  on  the  near- 
est lamp-post  else";  and  Stapfer  sneeringly  alluded  to  it  as 
"The  famous  paradox  brought  forward  from  time  to  time  by 
some  lunatic."  Engel  stigmatized  Baconians  as  "Orthodox- 
minded  lunatics,  distinguished  from  such  as  tenant  asylums 
in  that  they  are  still  at  large.  People  of  this  brain-sick  habit, 
maniacs,  are  as  hard  to  convince  of  their  error  ^s  they  who 
imagine  themselves  God  Almighty,  or  the  Emperor  of  China, 
or  the  Pope";  and  said  White,  "When  symptoms  of  the  v 
Bacon-Shakspere  craze  manifest  themselves,  the  patient 
should  be  immediately  carried  off  to  an  asylum,  etc.";  and 
Robertson,  in  this  year  of  grace,  is  nearly  as  vitriolic,  yet  his 
book,  "The  Baconian  Heresy,"  is  but  an  apology  for  a  defense 
of  his  thesis. 

I  could  quote  a  number  as  vulgar  as  the  following  from  a 
writer  in  the  New  York  "Herald,"  who  signs  his  name,  B.J  .A. : 
"The  idea  of  robbing  the  world  of  Shakespeare  for  such  a 
stiff,  legal-headed  old  jackass  as  Bacon,  is  a  modern  invention 
of  fools." 

There  is  no  hope  for  men  who  treat  fellow  students  in  any 

xxvii 


PROLOGUE 

field  of  literary  labor  in  this  manner.  The  charge  they  make 
against  them  is  lunacy,  and,  especially,  lack  of  scholarship; 
both  words  are  favorites  with  them ;  yet  Disraeli,  Gervinus, 
Hawthorne,  Judge  Nathaniel  Holmes,  Lowell,  Dickens,  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  Massey,  Gladstone,  Winchell,  Whittier, 
Professor  Cantor,  Judge  Wilde,  and  many  others  who  have 
expressed  opinions  adverse  to  these  monopolists  of  scholar- 
ship, occupy  quite  as  high  rank  in  the  world  of  letters  as  they ; 
indeed,  when  we  examine  the  work  of  the  Stratfordian  revil- 
ers,  we  are  astounded  at  its  character  and  lack  of  accuracy. 
Probably  in  all  literature  there  is  no  more  faulty  work  to  be 
found  than  in  their  treatment  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works, 
from  Rowe  to  Lee,  as  I  expect  to  show.  It  is  probable  that 
having  laid  myself  so  fully  open  to  query,  I  shall  be  asked 
whether  I  also  am  able  to  swallow  what  several  of  the  gentle- 
men I  have  quoted  denominate  "The  Cipher  fraud.*'  In 
reply,  as  my  object  is  to  present  to  the  critical  reader  a  view 
of  the  Bacon-Shakspere  controversy  in  its  varied  aspects,  I 
shall  not  fail  to  treat  this  branch  of  the  subject  in  its  proper 
place ;  but  were  I  to  omit  doing  so,  I  am  hoping  that  the  reader 
will  find  the  evidence  produced  to  be  far  more  than  needed  to 
sustain  the  thesis  I  advocate.  Should  I  be  right  or  wrong  in 
harboring  this  hope,  I  shall  be  especially  grateful  to  receive 
the  reader's  opinion  frankly  expressed. 

I  was  asked  by  a  friend  why  I  had  devoted  so  much  time 
and  thought  to  this  subject,  and  he  frankly  remarked  that 
to  him  it  seemed  to  be  of  questionable  importance,  since  we 
had  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  and  need  not  care  who  wrote 
them.  Lest  others  be  of  the  same  mind,  I  will  say  that  I 
replied  to  him  that  we  owe  an  immense  debt  to  the  author  of 
these  works  which  we  cannot  afford  to  ignore  by  shirking  the 
question  of  their  authorship ;  that  it  is  a  question  of  the  great- 
est literary  importance,  and  simple  justice  demands  that  it  be 
settled  righteously,  if  possible.  Whether  I  have  contributed 
toward  accomplishing  this  the  reader  must  judge.    In  the 

xxviii 


PROLOGUE 

elucidation  of  my  subject  I  have  carefully  studied  and  com- 
pared the  work  of  the  various  authors  and  critics  who  have 
written  upon  it,  —  the  earliest  editions  of  pre-Stuart  and 
Stuart  works  bearing  upon  it ;  the  letters  and  works  of  Bacon ; 
the  annals  and  correspondence,  as  well  as  the  literature  of  the 
period,  —  and  assure  my  readers  that  they  do  not  have  sec- 
ond-hand quotations  in  any  case.  I  have  supplied  footnotes 
for  their  ready  verification.  All  quotations  from  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works  are  taken  from  the  Folio  of  1623,  or  the 
Quartos  preceding  it. 

One  of  the  studies  to  which  I  devoted  much  labor  and 
research  very  early  in  my  work,  and  prepared  for  the  press, 
I  recently  found  had  been  treated  by  an  excellent  writer,  and 
several  phrases  used  by  him  are  so  near  my  own  that  it  might 
appear  that  I  had  been  inspired  by  his  more  recent  work.  I 
have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  change  these  expressions 
inasmuch  as  I  have  presented  the  subject  much  more  exhaus- 
tively, and  students,  in  our  day,  realize  that  men  pursuing  the 
same  course  of  thought  may  fall  quite  naturally  into  similar 
forms  of  expression. 

My  endeavor  has  been  to  meet  all  worthy  arguments 
which  have  been  urged  against  Bacon's  authorship  of  the 
*' Shakespeare"  Works,  that  the  reader  may  have  a  clear 
view  of  the  greatest  of  Literary  Problems. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY 
PROBLEMS 

I 

THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

THE    ELIZABETHAN   AGE 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth  is  one  of  the  strikingly  picturesque 
pages  of  history.  The  last  of  the  Tudors,  that  family  of  royal 
despots  who  had  ruled  England  with  a  heavy  hand  for  eight}^- 
three  years,  she  came  to  the  throne,  we  might  well  say  by 
chance,  if  we  regarded  only  the  letter  of  history,  and  over- 
looked its  Providential  aspects,  when  the  English  people  were 
yet  striving  to  emerge  from  barbarity.  This  is  instanced  by 
the  deplorable  condition  of  society  as  disclosed  by  the  annals 
oF  the  time. 

The  reigns  of  Henry  VIII  and  of  his  elder  daughter,  who  by 
her  harsh  rule  earned  the  title  of  "  Bloody  Mary,"  have  been 
pictured  grimly  in  English  annals,  while  the  reign  of  his 
younger  daughter,  Elizabeth,  who  had  inherited  the  few  better 
traits  of  her  father,  as  well  as  most  of  his  numerous  bad  ones, 
has  been  colored  too  brightly  by  writers  who  have  been 
dazzled  by  its  brilliancy.  Her  family  had  come  to  reign  in 
England  as  conquerors,  and  their  ideal  of  government  was  the 
mailed  hand  and  the  supple  knee.  All  the  conditions  existing 
,  at  their  advent  favored  despotic  rule.  With  an  ignorant  and 
turbulent  populace,  no  other  seemed  possible,  and  it  soon 
became  more  oppressive  than  autocratic  rule  in  Russia  has 
been  within  the  past  century.  The  nobility  monopolized  the 
wealth  and  power  of  the  realm,  though  the  more  numerous 

I 


THE  GPEATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

middle  class,  in  spite  of  the  obstacles  of  caste  and  custom 
which  opposed  it,  was  slowly  attaining  vantage-ground.  The 
common  people  had  no  rights  which  they  dared  assert,  and 
for  the  most  part  quietly  submitted  to  their  superiors,  while 
those  in  official  life  held  their  positions  by  tenures  too  weak  to 
permit  them  much  repose,  for  they  were  ever  conscious  that 
they  might  at  any  time  be  cast  out  in  disgrace  by  a  caprice  of 
their  royal  master,  or  through  the  machinations  of  those  who 
had  gained  his  ear. 

To  question  the  absolute  power  of  the  monarch  was  trea- 
son. Sir  Thomas  More,  statesman,  jurist,  and  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, went  to  the  block  because  his  conscience  would  not 
permit  him  to  acknowledge  the  King's  supremacy  where  it 
involved  illegal  divorce  from  his  Queen,  and  an  arbitrary 
change  in  the  succession,  as  well  as  the  Chancellor's  own 
renunciation  of  one  of  his  deepest  rooted  religious  tenets. 
Said  James  I,  "The  absolute  prerogative  of  the  Crown  is  no 
subject  for  the  tongue  of  a  lawyer.  It  is  presumption  and  high 
contempt  in  a  subject  to  dispute  what  a  King  can  do,  or  say 
that  a  King  cannot  do  this  or  that."  ^ 

All  men  are  the  creatures  of  heredity  and  environment,  and 
the  fruit  of  their  endeavors,  if  it  escapes  final  blight,  is  colored 
and  flavored  by  them ;  hence,  it  was  but  natural  that  Eliza- 
beth, sired  as  she  was,  and  reared  to  maturity  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  tyranny,  should  have  had  an  invincible  faith  in  the 
dogma  of  the  divine  right  of  monarchs  to  rule  as  they  willed, 
and  should  have  regarded  official  life  as  wholly  dependent 
upon  servile  subservience  to  political  necessity,  that  illusive 
but  convenient  phrase  which  has  been  thought  to  excuse  the 
violation  of  human  rights. 

In  the  Tudor  family  she  was  simply  a  dependent  young 
woman  without  future  prospects  beyond  those  of  other  noble 
families,  and  she  could  have  cherished  no  reasonable  expecta- 
tion of  ever  reaching  the  throne.    Her  brother  Edward  suc- 

1  His  Majestie's  Speach  in  the  Starre  Chamber.  Robert  Barker,  London. 

2 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

ceeded  her  father,  and  after  a  reign  of  six  years  gave  place  to 
her  sister  Mary,  who,  married  to  the  Spanish  Phihp,  seemed 
certain  to  have  heirs,  even  if  she  did  not  outhve  her,  for  with  a 
sister  jealous  of  her  every  movement,  and  ready  to  suspect 
her  of  treason  upon  the  slightest  pretext,  Elizabeth's  chance 
of  life  was  none  too  promising.  She  had  given  her  family 
ample  cause  for  distrusting  her  by  a  scandalous  affair  with 
Lord  Seymour  when  in  her  sixteenth  year.  Says  Lingard: 
"Seymour's  attentions  to  the  princess  were  remarked,  and 
their  familiarity  was  so  undisguised  that  it  awakened  the 
jealousy  of  his  wife  by  whom  he  was  one  day  surprised  with 
Elizabeth  in  his  arms."  Shortly  after  the  wife  conveniently 
died,  her  death  being  "  attributed  to  poison,"  and  we  are  told 
that  he  "redoubled  his  court  to  the  princess;  her  governess 
was  bribed,  her  own  affections  were  won." 

From  the  testimony  of  Elizabeth's  governess,  "the  reluc- 
tant Mrs.  Ashley,"  as  Lingard  calls  her,  *St  appears  that  the 
courtship  was  not  conducted  in  the  most  delicate  manner. 
The  moment  he  was  up,  he  would  hasten  to  Elizabeth's 
chamber,  *  in  his  night  gown  and  barelegged ' :  if  she  were  still 
in  bed,  *he  would  put  open  the  curteyns  and  make  as  though 
he  wold  come  at  her,  and  she  would  go  farther  in  the  bed,  so 
that  he  could  not  come  at  her.' "  ^ 

The  wife  of  the  Spanish  minister,  Feria,  an  English  lady, 
was  one  of  Queen  Mary's  household,  and  on  Elizabeth's  acces- 
sion went  to  Spain,  where  she  resided  until  her  death  in  1612. 
In  her  "Life"  is  the  following  relating  to  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth:— 

A  great  lady  who  knew  her  very  well,  being  a  girl  of  twelve  or 
thirteen,  told  me  that  she  was  proud  and  disdainful.  ...  In 
King  Edward's  time  what  passed  between  the  Lord  Admiral, 
Sir  Thomas  Seymour,  and  her,  Dr.  Latimer  preached  in  a  ser- 
mon, and  was  chief  cause  that  the  Parliament  condemned  the 
Admiral.     There  was   a  bruit  of  a  child  born  and  miserably 

1  John  Lingard,  The  History  of  England,  vol.  v,  pp.  273,  274.  Boston,  1883. 

3 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

destroyed,  but  could  not  be  discovered  whose  it  was,  only  the 
report  of  the  midwife  who  was  brought  from  her  house  blindfold 
thither,  and  so  returned,  saw  nothing  in  the  house  while  she  was 
there  but  a  candle  light,  only  she  said  it  was  the  child  of  a  very 
fair  young  lady.^ 

It  seems  that  a  clandestine  marriage  was  planned,  "her 
governess  v^as  bribed,  her  own  affections  were  won,"  when  it 
was  realized  that  Elizabeth  by  such  a  marriage  would  forfeit 
her  right  to  the  succession.  Parliament  was  therefore  applied 
to.  Elizabeth  in  a  letter  to  the  protector  informed  him  of 
Seymour's  proposal  of  marriage,  and  to  a  report  that  she  was 
pregnant  declared  it  to  be  "  a  shameful  schandler."  There  is 
much  more  on  this  unsavory  subject,  but  we  have  already 
quoted  too  much. 

In  the  summer  of  1554,  for  supposed  sympathy  with  the 
claims  of  Lady  Jane  Grey  to  the  throne,  she  was  thrown  into 
the  Tower,  that  gateway  to  the  block,  with  Robert  Dudley, 
whom  she  had  known  from  childhood,  and  to  whom  she  had 
shown  marked  favor  at  her  brother's  court.  He  was  noted  for 
his  fascinating  personality,  and  she  would  have  been  only  too 
glad  to  marry  him  had  he  not  been  encumbered  with  a  wife 
whom  history  affirms  he  subsequently  disposed  of  in  the  hope 
of  such  a  consummation;  indeed,  immediately  following  his 
wife's  death,  Elizabeth  announced  her  intention  of  so  doing, 
which  prompted  the  Queen  of  Scots  to  declare  that —  "The 
Queen  of  England  was  about  to  marry  her  horse-keeper  [he 
was  master  of  horse],  who  had  killed  his  wife  to  make  a  place 
for  her."  ^ 

After  a  life  so  disheartening  as  Elizabeth's  had  been,  to 
be  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  elevated  to  almost  unlimited 
power  was  an  event  which  must  have  seemed  to  her  miracu- 
lous, as  it  did  to  her  friends. 

The  kingdom  at  the  time  was  menaced  by  dangers  from  all 

^   The  Life  of  Jane  Dormer,  Duchess  of  Feria,  p.  83.    London,  1887. 
^  James  Anthony  Froude,  M.A.,  History  of  England,  vol.  vii,  p.  303.    New 
York,  1867. 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

sides:  at  home  by  civil  strife  embittered  by  religious  differ- 
ences; on  the  Scotch  border  by  plots  and  political  disturb- 
ances; in  Ireland  by  persistent  rebellion;  abroad  by  Rome, 
sullen  and  anxious  for  her  humiliation;  by  France  racially 
hostile  and  ever  ready  to  do  her  an  ill  turn ;  by  Spain,  proud  of 
her  power,  and  confident  in  her  destiny  to  extend  it  ultimately 
over  the  world ; — these  were  the  perils  which  Elizabeth  faced 
when,  dazzled  by  the  pomp  and  glitter  of  her  coronation,  and 
intoxicated  by  the  plaudits  of  the  people,  she  ascended  the 
throne.  The  effect  may  be  imagined.  Young,  impulsive,  with 
passions  none  too  firmly  held  in  check,  she  was  gracious  and 
imperious  by  turns,  smiling  on  a  handsome  suitor,  or  dismiss- 
ing an  offending  courtier  with,  perhaps,  a  blow.  Yet  she  per- 
mitted herself  to  be  moulded  to  some  extent  by  those  about 
her  who  had  chafed  under  the  oppression  of  her  predecessors ; 
men  whose  minds,  perhaps,  had  felt  the  vivifying  influence  of 
the  Renaissance  of  France  and  Italy,  which  England  had  been 
backward  in  receiving. 

There  is  no  wonder  that  the  knightly  blood  of  England 
warmed  to  this  attractive  woman,  who  possessed  a  sparkling 
wit  and  an  education  above  the  average  of  her  time,  which 
enabled  her  to  use  it  to  the  best  advantage;  nor  that  the 
adventurous  and  romantic  spirits  of  the  realm  rallied  about 
her,  ready  to  dedicate  their  lives  to  her  service.  No  man 
could  have  secured  such  whole-hearted  devotion,  as  well  she 
knew,  and  fickle  and  wise  by  turns,  she  was  clever  enough  to 
keep  the  helm,  and,  with  a  skilful  navigator  like  Burghley 
ever  at  her  elbow  to  give  her  the  proper  instruction,  she  man- 
aged to  guide  the  Ship  of  State  safely  through  storm  and  calm, 
and  win  the  title  of  "Good  Queen  Bess."  Yet  "good"  is  far 
from  the  proper  title  for  a  woman,  selfish,  vain,  extravagant, 
cruel,  and  despotic,  all  of  which  she  was.  As  in  the  heart  of 
Henry  VIII,  so  in  that  of  his  daughter,  who  delighted  in  her 
inheritance  of  kindred  traits,  the  power  of  love  always  suc- 
cumbed in  the  end  to  the  love  of  power.  Quite  naturally  she 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PI^OBLEMS 

sympathized  with  the  enthusiasts  who  gathered  about  her; 
even  at  times  encouraged  their  progressive  views,  and  looked 
kindly  upon  the  Protestant  cause  which  was  affected  by  the 
mania,  as  it  was  regarded  by  those  in  power,  of  free  thought ; 
but  she  had  inherited  the  tyrannical  disposition  of  her  father, 
and  readily  turned  a  friendly  ear  to  the  ultra-conservative 
opinions  of  Burghley,  and  those  to  whom  innovation  of  any 
kind  bordered  closely  upon  Ihe  majeste. 

Yet  she  gave  some  encouragement  to  a  progressive  spirit, 
which  exhibited  itself  in  commercial  and  maritime  enterprise, 
and  made  possible  the  hope  of  a  humanistic  awakening.  But 
Tudor  despotism  was  so  deeply  embedded  in  the  laws,  and  its 
spirit  so  colored  the  opinions  and  shaped  the  customs  of  the 
people, that  free  thought  could  not  find  open  expression  safely; 
hence  the  dreamers  of  reform  were  unable  to  promulgate 
openly  the  views  which  they  believed  would  emancipate  the 
people  finally  from  the  stupefying  influence  of  prejudice  and 
custom  which  distorted  their  intellectual  vision,  for  it  seems 
beyond  question  that  at  no  time  during  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, an  open  advocacy  of  reform  which  pointed  to  larger 
liberty  of  the  subject  in  thought  and  action  would  not  have 
been  construed  as  touching  the  question  of  supremacy,  which 
meant  treason  with  its  terrible  penalties;  indeed,  the  suspi- 
cion of  treason,  a  word  so  elastic  as  to  be  stretched  to  almost 
any  desired  length,  was  ever  in  the  air,  and  he  whom  it  reached, 
though  innocent,  often  had  the  bitter  experience  of  rack, 
dungeon,  and  peine  forte  et  dure,  things  which  in  process  of 
time  had  become  so  familiar  as  not  to  disturb  the  social 
conscience. 

Even  to  express  one's  opinion  upon  questions  of  govern- 
mental policy,  or  to  publish  a  history  of  a  preceding  reign 
which  could  be  distorted  into  a  reflection  upon  her  govern- 
ment, was  dangerous.  For  publishing  a  pamphlet  opposing 
the  French  marriage,  John  Stubbs  and  Robert  Page  had  their 
right  hands  severed  at  the  wrist  with  a  butcher  knife  and 

6 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

mallet.^  Sydney  was  banished  for  the  same  offense,  and  Hay- 
ward,  author  of  the  "Annals,"  for  pubHshing  the  first  part  of 
the  history  of  Henry  IV,  was  sent  to  the  Tower,  and  would 
have  gone  to  the  block  had  not  Bacon  saved  him  from  Eliza- 
beth's fury  by  his  wit.  "But,"  says  Bruce,  "although  thus 
kindly  sheltered  from  personal  outrage,  he  suffered  a  long 
imprisonment."  ^ 

Men  were  subjected  to  severe  punishment  on  the  slightest 
occasion.  For  so  small  a  matter  as  kissing  the  Pope's  toe. 
Sir  John  Danvers,  returning  from  a  journey  from  Italy,  was 
subjected  by  Elizabeth  to  imprisonment.  While  torture  was 
not  recognized  by  law  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  she  seems  to 
have  regarded  it  as  one  of  her  prerogatives.  Its  worst  result 
was  the  extortion  of  false  evidence  against  the  innocent  by 
increasing  the  suffering  of  the  poor  victim  until  his  testimony 
was  satisfactory.  About  1580  it  was  cruelly  used  against  the 
Catholics  to  convict  them  of  saying  mass  and  exercising  other 
religious  rites.  The  cruelty  of  Elizabeth  was  especially  exhib- 
ited in  obtaining  evidence  against  Norfolk.  This  was  her  order 
to  Sir  Thomas  Smith,  one  of  her  councilors,  respecting  two 
witnesses,  —  "We  warrant  you  to  cause  them  both  to  be 
brought  to  the  rack  and  first  to  move  them  with  fear  thereof 
to  deal  plainly  in  their  answers ;  and  if  that  shall  not  move 
them,  then  you  shall  cause  them  to  be  put  to  the  rack,  and  to 
find  the  taste  thereof  until  they  shall  deal  more  plainly,  or 
until  you  shall  think  meet."  ^ 

Of  Elizabeth's  personality  but  little  of  a  favorable  character 
can  be  said.  No  woman  could  be  more  vacillating  or  more 
unreasonably  stubborn  than  she,  traits  which  often  imperiled 
the  realm,  and  put  the  patience  of  her  ministers  to  the  severest 
strain.  Vain  of  her  fancied  beauty,  —  for,  if  her  most  flatter- 
ing portrait  is  true,  she  was  but  ordinarily  fair,  —  she  at  all 

1  William  Camden,  History  of  Elizabeth,  p.  270.   London,  1688. 

2  Sir  John  Hayward,  Kt.,  D.C.L.,  Annals  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  p.  xiv.  London, 
1840. 

3  The  Trial  of  Norfolk,  p.  27. 

7 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

times,  even  when  old  and  ugly,  demanded  the  most  fulsome 
adulation  from  those  about  her,  seeming  to  enjoy  the  amorous 
sighs  and  suggestive  sufferings  ostentatiously  displayed  by 
her  favorites,  whom  she  petted  and  punished  as  the  whim 
prompted ;  in  fact,  it  is  doubtful  if  reflections  upon  her  beauty 
would  not  have  caused  them  to  "hop  round  without  their 
heads,"  to  quote  one  of  her  cruel  expressions.  She  seems 
to  have  inherited  all  the  violence  and  vindictiveness  of  her 
father.  Her  cruelty  to  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots ;  to  Arundel,  a 
former  suitor,  and  his  wife ;  as  well  as  to  the  Roman  Catholics 
who  comprised  more  than  half  of  her  subjects,  indicates  this. 
That  she  was  an  expert  in  the  tortuous  diplomacy  of  the  time 
appears  by  the  manner  in  which  she  avoided  trouble  with 
Spain  by  dangling  her  heart  before  Philip,  while  Burghley,  at 
suitable  intervals,  sprung  upon  him  the  French  jack-in-the- 
box.  Her  private  life  was  a  continual  scandal.  Though  we 
have  so  little  respecting  this  phase  of  her  character,  it  is 
almost  strange  that  we  have  so  much,  since  the  corrupt  back- 
ground of  her  court  failed  to  give  it  distinction,  and  to  have 
criticized  it  would  have  been  perilous,  indeed. 

The  Spanish  ambassador,  Le  Feria,  wrote  his  sovereign, 
April  i8,  1559:  — 

They  tell  me  that  she  is  enamoured  of  Lord  Robert  Dudley 
and  never  leaves  his  side.  He  is  in  such  favor  that  people  say  she 
visits  him  in  his  chamber  day  and  night. ^ 

It  was  rumored  —  seemingly  on  Lord  Robert's  own  authority 
—  that  some  private  but  formal  betrothal  had  passed  between 
the  Queen  and  himself.^ 

And  Throgmorton  wrote  to  Cecil  from  Paris:  — 

The  bruits  be  so  brim,  touching  the  marriage  of  the  Lord 
Robert,  and  the  death  of  his  wife,  that  I  know  not  where  to 
turn  me,  nor  what  countenance  to  bear.^ 

1  MSS.  Simancas;  Froude,  vol.  vii,  p.  87. 

2  Froude,  vol.  vii,  p.  297. 

^  Hardwicke  Papers,  vol.  I,  p.  121. 

8 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

And  Sir  Henry  Sydney  told  the  Bishop  of  Aquila  that 

The  Queen  and  Lord  Robert  were  lovers:  but  they  intended 
honest  marriage.^ 

On  January  22,  1561,  the  Bishop  wrote:  — 

Some  say  she  is  a  mother  aheady  but  this  I  do  not  beHeve.^ 

Was  she  really  married  to  Dudley?  When  certain  letters 
of  the  Bishop  of  Aquila  fell  into  the  hands  of  Cecil,  and  he  was 
charged  with  having  written  Philip,  "That  the  Queen  had 
previously  married  Lord  Robert  in  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's 
house,"  he  replied :  — 

I  wrote  what  I  said  to  the  Queen  herself,  that  it  was  reported 
all  over  London  that  the  marriage  had  then  taken  place.  She 
betrayed  neither  surprise  nor  displeasure  at  my  words.  Had  I 
so  pleased  I  might  have  written  ail  this  to  his  Majesty;  nor  do 
I  think  I  should  have  done  wrong  had  I  told  him  the  World's 
belief  that  she  was  married  already.^ 

If  this  were  true  it  would  account  for  her  persistent  fenc- 
ing with  matrimonial  adventurers,  and  her  deep  attachment 
to  Dudley  which  dominated  her  during  her  life,  and  drove 
Burghley  to  the  verge  of  distraction. 

In  spite  of  her  sordid  parsimony,  which  on  several  occasions 
imperiled  the  safety  of  the  nation,  she  was  as  lavish  to  him  as 
she  was  in  gratifying  her  personal  extravagance  which  was 
carried  to  extremes.  It  is  stated  that  she  left  at  her  death 
"more  than  2000  gowns  with  all  things  answerable."  ^ 

Nothing  could  excel  the  costliness  of  her  wardrobe,  many 
of  her  dresses  being  adorned  with  pearls  and  other  gems.  To 
her  most  loyal  subjects,  —  and  we  may  mention  as  conspicu- 
ous examples  Burghley  and  Drake,  —  she  showed  little  gen- 
erosity, and  many  of  them,  by  their  costly  gifts  to  her,  which 

*  Froude,  vol.  vii,  p.  316.  ^  /h'J.,  p.  320. 

^  MSS.  Simancas ;  Froude,  vol.  vii,  p.  414. 

^  Sir  John  Harrington,  Kt.,  Nugcz  Antiques^  vol.  i,  p.  119.  London, 
1804. 

9 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

to  hold  her  favor  they  felt  obliged  to  bestow,  and  by  their 
expenditures  in  her  service  which  she  never  troubled  herself 
to  reimburse,  were  brought  to  poverty. 

Her  parsimony,  perhaps,  may  be  accounted  for  partly  by 
the  fact  that  when  she  assumed  rule  the  nation  was  in  dire 
poverty,  and  only  by  the  supreme  efforts  of  Burghley  was  it 
saved  from  bankruptcy.  Doubtless  he  deeply  impressed  upon 
the  young  Queen,  who  had  lived  a  straitened  life,  the  necessity 
of  economy,  a  virtue  which  she  had  hitherto  been  obliged  to 
practice  herself,  and  now  found  it  easy  to  practice  upon  others, 
while,  prompted  by  inordinate  selfishness,  she  indulged  to  the 
limit  her  passion  for  luxury  and  display.  On  Dudley,  however, 
in  spite  of  acts  which  bitterly  angered  her,  she  heaped  favors 
until  his  death  in  1588  when  on  his  way  from  camp  after  the 
defeat  of  the  Armada. 

Says  Lingard,  "Only  the  week  before  his  death  he  prevailed 
on  her  to  promise  him  a  much  larger  share  of  the  royal  author- 
ity than  had  ever,  in  such  circumstances,  been  conferred  on  a 
subject,"  and  "If  tears  are  a  proof  of  affection,  those  shed  by 
the  Queen  on  this  occasion  showed  that  hers  was  seated  deeply 
in  the  heart."  ^ 

To  recur  to  the  belief  in  their  sexual  relations:  In  1560, 
Anna  Dowe,  of  Brentford,  was  the  first  of  a  long  line  of 
offenders  to  be  sent  to  prison  for  asserting  that  Elizabeth  was 
with  child  by  Dudley;  in  1563,  Robert  Brooke,  of  Devizes, 
was  punished  for  a  like  offense;  and  in  1570,  Marsham,  a 
Norfolk  gentleman,  lost  his  ears  for  saying  that  "My  Lord  of 
Leicester  had  two  children  by  the  Queen." 

As  only  occasional  cases  got  recorded,  it  is  apparent  that 
they  continued  for  a  period  of  at  least  ten  years.  In  1571, 
twelve  years  after  her  accession,  Parliament  was  invoked  to 
make  it  a  penal  offense  to  speak  of  any  other  successor  to  the 
Crown  of  England  than  the  natural  issue  of  the  Queen.  The 
popular  feeling  with  regard  to  Elizabeth's  connection  with 

^  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  516  et  seq, 
10 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

Leicester  on  that  occasion  is  well  expressed  by  Camden.  He 
says,  "I  myself  .  .  .  have  heard  some  oftentimes  say,  that 
the  word  was  inserted  into  the  Act  of  purpose  by  Leicester, 
that  it  might  one  day  obtrude  upon  the  English  some  Bastard 
son  of  his  for  the  Queen's  natural  issue."  ^ 

It  was  contended  that  the  term  "natural"  distinctly  meant 
a  birth  out  of  wedlock,  and  that  "lawful"  was  the  only  proper 
term  to  have  been  used. 

There  is  much  more  upon  this  subject  which  shows  beyond 
doubt  the  relations  of  Elizabeth  and  Dudley;  indeed,  they 
were  quite  fully  set  forth  in  a  book  by  John  Barclay,  published 
in  Latin  in  1621,  entitled  the  "Argenis,"  to  which  attention 
will  be  given  hereafter,  when  our  object  in  treating  particu- 
larly of  these  relations  will  appear. 

Though  the  Queen  was  known  to  be  a  lover  of  letters,  espe- 
dally  of  poetry  and  the  drama,  a  large  portion  of  her  subjects 
were  incapable  of  sympathizing  with  her  in  this  regard. 
Opposition  to  the  theater  was  especially  active,  and  players 
were  held  in  disrepute.  This  feeling  became  so  strong  that 
in  1575  they  were  banished  from  London  proper  and  obliged 
to  set  up  their  stage  in  the  suburbs.  A  fierce  controversy 
respecting  the  dangerous  influence  of  dramatic  exhibitions 
upon  public  morals  followed,  and  when  Philip  Stubbes's 
denunciation  of  "Stage  Plays  and  their  Evils"  was  published, 
it  broke  out  afresh,  and  engaging  the  attention  of  Sergeant- 
at-Law  Fleetwood,  who  was  then  active  in  ferreting  out 
Popish  plots,  for  which  service  he  earned  the  honor  he  coveted 
of  being  made  Sergeant  to  the  Queen,  he  turned  his  attention 
to  the  players,  and  was  soon  able  to  write  to  Burghley  as 
follows :  — 

By  searche  I  do  perceive  that  there  is  no  one  thing  of  late  more 
lyke  to  have  renewed  this  contagion  of  treason  then  the  prac- 
tice of  an  idle  sorte  of  people  which  have  been  infamous  in  all 
good  common-weales,  I  mean  those  histriones,  common  players, 

^  William  Camden,  Elizabeth,  p.  167. 
II 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

who  now  daylie  but  speciallye  on  holydayes,  set  up  boothes 
whereunto  the  youthe  resorteth  excessively,  and  there  taketh 
infection.^ 

In  1583,  it  was  thought  best  still  further  to  tighten  the 
screws.  Archbishop  Grindal,  who  was  supposed  to  have  too 
tender  a  heart,  and  had  been  sequestered  from  his  archi- 
episcopal  functions,  died,  and  his  successor,  who  had  already 
displayed  his  harsh  spirit,  was  at  once  empowered  by  the 
Queen  to  send  inquisitors  throughout  the  country  in  imita- 
tion of  her  Spanish  neighbors,  "To  visit  and  reform  all  errors, 
heresies,  schisms,  in  a  word,  to  regulate  all  opinion,"  and  to 
use  all  "Means  and  ways  which  they  could  devise;  that  is,  by 
the  rack,  by  torture,  by  inquisition,  by  imprisonment."  To 
achieve  their  purpose,  they  could  go  to  any  person  and 
"Administer  to  him  an  oath  called  'ex  officio^  by  which  he 
was  bound  to  answer  all  questions,  and  might  thereby  be 
obliged  to  accuse  himself  or  his  most  intimate  friend."^ 
Verily  it  was  an  age  in  which  social  vice  and  theological  piety 
were  bedfellows.  This  oath  was  intended  to  strike  terror  into 
the  hearts  of  all  whose  opinions  were  not  strictly  in  accord- 
ance with  those  of  their  rulers.  Players,  Roman  Catholics, 
and  supposed  practicers  of  magic  art,  felt  the  first  force  of 
the  storm.  The  following  letter  from  the  Bishop  of  London 
to  Secretary  Cecil  shows  the  measures  taken  against  the 
theaters :  — 

Upon  Sondaie,  my  Lord  sent  two  aldermen  to  the  court  for 
the  suppressing  and  pulling  downe  of  the  theartre  and  curten, 
for  all  the  Lords  agreed  thereunto  save  my  Lord  Chamberlayn 
and  Mr.  Vice-Chamberlayn;  but  we  obtayned  a  letter  to  suppress 
them  all.^ 

To  carry  out  the  measures  adopted  against  Papists  and 
those  suspected  of  witchcraft,  oflficers,  denominated  "witch- 

^  Thomas  Wright,  M.A.,  F.S.A.,  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Her  Times,  vol.  i, 
p.  166  et  seq.   London,  1838. 

2  David  Hume,  The  History  of  England,  vol.  vi,  pp.  152-54.   London,  1803. 
'  Thomas  Wright,  ihid.,  vol.  11,  p.  228. 

12 


■ 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

finders/'  were  employed  to  go  about  the  country  to  find  sus- 
pects. Witnesses,  either  to  ingratiate  themselves  with  the 
officers  or  to  pay  off  grudges  against  neighbors  or  for  pecu- 
niary profit,  were  ever  at  hand  to  aid  these  villains,  many  of 
whom  were  of  the  vilest  character,  and  hundreds  of  innocent 
people  were  cruelly  tortured  and  executed  upon  the  flimsiest 
pretext;  many  for  only  having  moles  and  other  blemishes 
upon  their  persons.  The  portrait  of  Matthew  Hopkins, 
"  Witchfinder  General,"  is  still  preserved  at  Magdalen  College. 
So  prevalent  was  the  belief  in  witchcraft  that  in  a  sermon 
before  the  Queen  Bishop  Jewel  used  these  words:  — 

It  may  please  Your  Grace  to  understand  that  witches,  sorcer- 
ers, within  these  last  few  years  are  marvelously  increased  within 
Your  Grace's  realm.  Your  Grace's  subjects  pine  away  even  unto 
death.  Their  colour  fadeth,  their  flesh  rotteth,  their  speech  is 
benumbed,  their  senses  are  bereft.  I  pray  God  they  never  prac- 
tise further  than  upon  the  Subject.^ 

Nothing  better  could  have  been  devised  to  inflame  the 
public  mind,  and  the  fever  continued  throughout  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  and  her  successor,  the  "English  Solomon,''  who 
wrote  a  book  in  support  of  the  belief  in  witchcraft. 

The  Roman  Catholics  fared  as  hardly.  Camden,  writing  of 
the  distrust  of  their  loyalty  in  1584,  gives  us  a  description  of 
the  methods  employed  to  ferret  them  out.   He  says :  — 

Counterfeit  letters  were  privily  sent  in  the  name  of  the  Queen 
of  Scots  and  the  Fugitives,  and  left  In  Papists'  Houses;  spies  were 
sent  abroad  up  and  down  the  Countrey  to  take  notice  of  People's 
Discourse  and  lay  hold  of  their  words.  Reporters  of  vain  and 
idle  stories  were  admitted  and  credited.  Hereupon  many  were 
brought  into  Suspicion.^ 

We  may  well  believe  that  these  were  among  the  common 
methods  for  the  suppression  of  independent  thought  em- 
ployed during  this  reign. 

^  John  Strype,  M.A.,  Annals  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  i,  p.  ii.  Oxford,  1824. 
^  William  Camden,  Elizabeth,  p.  294.   London,  1688. 

13 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

But  the  current  of  human  progress,  though  often  obstructed 
and  turned  aside,  eventually  washes  away  its  barriers  and 
pursues  its  predestined  course.  A  religious  faith  could  not  be 
extirpated,  nor  could  the  drama  be  suppressed,  for  it  was  too 
deeply  rooted  in  the  affections  of  the  people.  It  was,  however, 
into  the  London  already  described  that  William  Shakspere 
came  after  a  disreputable  life  in  Stratford  and  began  his 
struggle  for  existence. 

At  this  time  the  popular  interest  in  dramatic  exhibitions 
was  on  the  increase,  and  the  writers  of  the  time  were  attracted 
by  the  promise  which  the  future  offered  them  in  the  field  of 
histrionic  art.  The  plays  then  on  the  stage  are  fairly  well 
described  by  Sydney:  — 

All  their  plays  be  neither  right  tragedies  nor  right  comedies, 
mingling  kings  and  clowns,  not  because  the  matter  so  carrieth, 
but  thrust  in  the  clown  by  head  and  shoulders  to  play  a  part  in 
majestical  matters,  with  neither  decency  nor  discretion;  so*  as 
neither  the  admiration  and  commiseration,  nor  the  right  sport- 
fulness,  is  by  their  mongrel  tragi-comedy  obtained.^ 

Such  plays  as  "King  Darius,"  ** Promos  and  Cassandra," 
"Ferrex  and  Porrex,"  and,  especially,  "A  pleasant  comedie 
called  Common  Conditions,"  delighted  the  play-goers  of  the 
early  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

English  literature  since  Chaucer's  time  had  produced  no 
great  name.  Those  who  could  read  English  or  Italian  de- 
pended principally  upon  the  foreign  romance  for  their  literary 
delectation.  Of  course  the  Arthurian  romances  and  many  old 
legendary  tales  had  come  down  from  remote  times,  and  were 
read  by  the  few  who  were  proficient  in  the  gentle  art ;  but  the 
masses  were  debarred  from  such  recreation,  being  unable  to 
read.  London,  with  a  population  of  hardly  two  hundred  thou- 
sand, reeked  with  filth  and  disease,  as  faulty  in  sanitary  con- 
ditions as  the  worst  Oriental  city  of  to-day.  Carrion  kites 
served  to  clean  the  streets ;  floors  were  covered  with  rushes  to 

^  The  Library  of  Old  English  Prose  Writers,  vol.  ii,  p.  75.   Cambridge,  1812. 

14 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

hide  the  dirt,  but  not  the  smell,  so  the  people  carried  "cast- 
ing bottles"  containing  perfumes  to  make  the  air  endurable. 
Its  inhabitants  were  so  vicious  and  degraded  that  they 
flocked  to  witness  the  brutal  executions  which  were  of  daily 
occurrence,  railing  and  jeering  at  the  victims,  and  finding 
delight  in  sports  too  cruel  for  description.  The  Queen,  says 
Goadby,  "dispite  her  culture,  used  terrible  oaths,  round  and 
full ;  she  stamped  her  feet,  she  thrust  about  her  with  a  sword, 
she  spat  upon  her  attendants,  and  behaved  as  the  French 
said,  like  'a  lioness.'"  ^ 

The  theaters  were  sinks  of  corruption  to  which  gravitated, 
if  we  may  credit  the  Mayor  of  London's  report  in  1597, 
"thieves,  horse  stealers,  whoremongers,  cozeners,  coney 
catchers,  contrivers  of  treason,  and  other  idle  and  dangerous 
persons."  ^  The  actors  were  not  much  above  the  moral  level  of 
their  patrons,  "base  and  common  fellows,"  according  to  the 
students  of  Gray's  Inn ;  and  to  escape  the  penalty  of  the  law 
against  unlicensed  players,  which,  for  the  first  offense,  con- 
demned them  to  be  "grievously  whipped  and  burnte  through 
the  gristle  of  the  right  eare  with  an  hot  yron  of  the  compasse 
of  an  ynch  aboute,"  and  for  a  third  offense  to  suffer  death, 
they  were  obliged  to  become  servants  to  some  one  in  power, 
under  whose  name  and  protection  they  plied  their  trade.  Of 
course,  no  respectable  woman  could  enter  these  "filthie 
haunts,"  as  they  were  designated  by  Harvey,  in  which  the 
customs  of  those  frequenting  them  were  unspeakably  vulgar 
and  obscene ;  hence  they  were  the  resort  of  the  vilest  women 
of  the  town,  which  added  to  their  degradation. 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth  had  passed  its  meridian  when  two 
events  happened  which  marked  a  new  epoch  in  literature. 
The  "Euphues,"  forerunner  of  the  English  novel,  appeared, 
and  a  few  months  later,  in  1579,  "The  Shepherd's  Calendar," 
harbinger  of  an  illustrious  era  of  English  poetry,  dropped 

^  Edwin  Goadby,  The  England  of  Shakespeare^  p.  126.   London,  1881. 
2  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  214. 
London,  1882. 

IS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

anonymously  into  being,  as  it  were  from  the  clouds.  These 
two  events  ushered  in  the  glorious  day  of  England's  Renais- 
sance. 

From  this  date,  despite  social  strife,  war  and  rumors  of 
war,  the  new  day  advanced  in  splendor;  the  gentle  Colin 
retuned  his  oaten  pipe,  and  sang  the  joy  of  home-coming; 
"The  Faerie  Queene,"  "Venus  and  Adonis,"  and  "Lucrece" 
thrilled  English  hearts  in  hall  and  palace ;  above  all,  dramatic 
art  felt  the  quickening  impulse,  and  works  of  a  new  order, 
many  anonymous,  and  many  under  the  names  of  hitherto 
unknown  men,  —  Marlowe,  dead  at  twenty-nine  in  a  brawl ; 
Greene,  at  thirty-two  from  a  debauch;  Peele,  before  forty, 
from  an  unspeakable  disease;  and  when  these  had  finished 
their  course,  similar  works,  bearing  the  name  ''Shakespeare," 
imparted  new  life  to  the  theater.  We  say  similar  works,  be- 
cause these  men  to-day  lead  the  van  in  the  history  of  the 
great  literary  revival  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  works 
accredited  to  them,  some  certainly  without  warrant,  are 
marked  by  the  same  expressions,  display  a  knowledge  of  the 
same  literary  sources,  and  publish  to  the  world  the  same  lofty 
sentiments;  in  fact,  this  has  been  so  fully  recognized  that 
critics,  almost  without  exception,  have  declared  that  they 
collaborated  or  duplicated  the  work  of  one  another.  That 
they  should  have  done  so  unconsciously  exceeds  the  limits 
of  reason. 

We  are  confining  our  view  to  these  men  because  they  ap- 
pear so  early  in  the  movement.  There  were  others  who  fell 
into  line  during  the  forty  or  more  years  of  its  especial  activity, 
and  got  their  names  on  the  Roll  of  Remembrance  —  Dray- 
ton, Nash,  Lodge,  Dekker,  He5rwood,  Sidney,  Massinger, 
Fletcher,  Kyd,  Webster,  Ben  Jonson,  and  others ;  some  with 
slight  reason. 

This,  however,  is  not  a  history  of  English  literature ;  that 
has  been  written  more  or  less  acceptably  by  Hallam,  Sy- 
monds,  Saintsbury,  Lee;  and  we  mention  these  writers  only 

i6 


THE  SETTING  OF  THE  STAGE 

in  recognition  of  their  place  in  the  Hterary  movement  of  which 
we  have  spoken. 

All  must  agree  that  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  who 
was  really  the  moving  spirit  in  this  great  movement.  Across 
the  Channel  it  was  Ronsard  who  initiated  and  directed  the 
French  Renaissance.  In  England  it  has  been  accredited  to 
Spenser,  who  was  a  poor  exile  in  Ireland;  it  is  quite  evident 
that  the  men  we  have  named  were  incapable  of  doing  it.  Who 
was  the  English  Ronsard?  Does  he  reveal  himself  in  the 
"  Shepherd's  Calendar"  or  the  "Shakespeare"  Works.?  These 
are  questions  which  demand  consideration,  and  they  find  sug- 
gestions to  their  solution  in  the  criticisms,  blind  as  many  of 
them  are,  with  which  we  have  been  surfeited. 

In  studying  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  we  cannot  fail  to  be 
impressed  with  the  persistent  purpose  which  they  reveal  of 
enlarging  the  scope  of  human  thought,  and  leading  the  mind  to 
loftier  heights  of  knowledge.  Their  author  reasoned  wisely  in 
selecting  the  drama  for  this  purpose,  for  by  it  he  could  appeal 
through  ear  and  eye  to  the  common  understanding,  and  open 
the  readiest  path  to  the  popular  mind,  leaving  upon  it  impres- 
sions less  easily  effaced  than  those  of  the  novel.  The  dramas 
and  poems  which  comprise  these  works  were  unlike  anything 
which  had  been  known  heretofore  to  the  English  people,  being 
saturated  with  the  loftiest  sentiments  and  the  acutest  phi- 
losophy, as  well  as  the  profoundest  learning.  We  may  well 
ask.  Were  these  works,  which  were  so  far  above  the  intellectual 
capacity  of  the  patrons  of  the  theater,  written  for  mere  gain.? 
Halliwell-Phillipps,  attributing  their  authorship  to  the  Strat- 
ford actor,  and  having  an  intimate  knowledge  of  his  character, 
asserts  that  his  "sole  aim  was  to  please  an  audience,  most  of 
whom  were  not  only  illiterate  but  unable  either  to  read  or 
write";  and  Pope  crystallizes  the  same  opinion  in  a  verse 
which  everybody  has  read,  that  he 


I 


For  gain,  not  glory,  winged  his  roving  flight 
And  grew  immortal  in  his  own  dispite. 

17 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

But  such  an  opinion  of  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works  involves  a  paradox.  We  can  conceive  of  him  only  as 
one  who,  conscious  of  being  entrusted  with  an  important  mes- 
sage to  man,  makes  its  delivery  his  chief  object.  It  is  especially 
with  these  works  that  we  have  to  do. 


II 

THE  THEME 

THE    GREATEST   BIRTH   OF  TIME 

The  "Shakespeare''  Works  have  been  the  admiration  of 
lovers  of  Hterature  for  nearly  three  centuries.  No  other  works 
have  attracted  to  themselves  so  much  conflicting  criticism, 
and  so  much  senseless  exaggeration.  So  widely  have  commen- 
tators differed  with  regard  to  them  that,  if  their  countervailing 
opinions  were  eliminated,  the  residuum  would  be  inconsider- 
able, and  were  the  ravings  of  delirious  devotees  gathered  into 
a  single  volume,  it  would  be  a  curious  addition  to  the  library 
of  the  alienist.  We  are  told  that  the  works  were  "  the  Greatest 
Birth  of  Time";  ^  that  their  author  was  "the  only  Exemplar 
of  his  Species";  that  "there  is  but  one  Christ,  there  has  been 
but  one  Shakespeare";  that  "Shakespeare  service,  if  not  wor- 
ship, is  now  acknowledged  over  the  World";  and  a  quarto  of 
Sulky  proportions  has  been  recently  published  echoing  the 
praises  of  devotees  during  the  first  century  of  the  world's 
knowledge  of  him,  which,  if  continued  to  our  time,  would 
form  a  library  by  itself  of  forbidding  magnitude.^ 

Moreover,  an  immense  body  of  literature  has  grown  up 
treating  of  every  phase  of  the  works  in  question,  which,  with 
numerous  be-emendated  editions,  was  estimated  in  1885  to 
comprise  at  least  ten  thousand  volumes.   Since  that  time  the 

1  The  title  originated  with  Bacon,  who,  as  early  as  1586,  "put  together,"  as 
he  says,  "A  youthful  essay  —  which,  with  vast  confidence,  I  called  by  the  high- 
sounding  title.  The  Greatest  Birth  of  Time."  Dean  Church  remarks  upon  this, 
—  "  In  very  truth  the  child  was  born,  and,  ...  for  forty  years  grew  and 
developed."  R.  W.  Church,  Bacon,  p.  170.     New  York,  1884. 

2  C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.,  Shakespeare's  Centurie  of  Prayse,  London,  1879. 
Frederick  J.  Furnivall,  M.A.,  Some  Three  Hundred  Fresh  Allusions  to  Shake- 
speare. London,  1886.  C.  M.  Ingleby  et  al.,  The  Shakespeare  Allusion  Book. 
New  York  and  London,  1909. 

19 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

number  has  largely  increased.  Some  of  these  works  possess 
elements  of  real  value,  but  all  are  more  or  less  misleading.  Let 
us  briefly  quote  from  several.  Their  author's  knowledge  is 
said  to  have  been  incomparable,  and  a  volume  of  nearly  five 
hundred  pages  has  been  given  to  the  world  crowded  with 
biblical  excerpts  which  profess  to  find  a  parallel  in  his  works. 
Referring  to  the  Stratford  actor  this  author  asserts  that 

Whatever  else  the  poet  had  or  lacked,  he  must  have  brought  to 
his  work  a  mind  richly  stored  with  the  thoughts  and  words  of 
the  English  Bible.  The  spontaneous  flow  of  scriptural  ideas  and 
phrases  which  are  to  be  found  everywhere  in  the  plays,  reveals 
the  fact  most  clearly  that  the  mind  of  Shakespeare  must  have, 
indeed,  been  "saturated"  with  the  word  of  God. 

And,  if  this  knowledge  of  Scripture  was  acquired  in  man- 
hood— 

The  presumption  would  be  in  favor  of  Shakespeare's  personal 
piety  ;  if  in  youth,  it  would  be  a  strong  testimony  in  favor  of  the 
religious  influences  of  his  home  and  the  training  given  by  his 
parents  and  schoolmasters.^ 

Some  writers  carry  adulation  to  much  greater  extremes. 
Says  Downing:  — 

I  see  no  sign  that  the  most  enlightened  religious  views  of  the 
present  were  any  secret  to  Shakespeare.  The  position  of  supreme 
enlightenment,  amid  the  wars,  murders,  massacres,  mutual  per- 
secutions, barbarous  controversies  and  jargonings,  that  then 
devastated  the  world,  in  the  name  of  a  generally  misunderstood 
religion,  must  have  been  very  moving  to  the  heart  of  Shakespeare, 
since  it  was  hopeless  for  him  to  attempt  to  breathe  one  syllable 
of  the  wisdom  that  would  have  redeemed  the  world  from  its  mad- 
ness and  unhappiness.  To  develope  and  reconstruct  Christianity 
in  the  light  of  the  Reformation  and  Renaissance,  this  about  the 
year  1598, 1  infer  from  all  the  evidence,  became  the  great  purpose 
and  life  work  of  Shakespeare;  to  be  achieved,  first,  by  living  the 
developed  life  himself  for  our  example;  secondly,  by  certain 
symbolical  works,  namely:  —  "The  Sonnets,"  already  largely 

1  Thomas  Carter,  Dr.  TheoL,  Shakespeare  and  Holy  Scripture ,  pp.  3,  4. 
London,  1905. 

20 


THE  THEME 

composed  and  ready  to  his  shaping  hand,  and  those  which  subse- 
quently took  form  as  "The  Tempest,"  "Winter's  Tale,"  and 
"Cymbeline."  These  were  to  veil,  till  the  fulness  of  time,  his 
pregnant  ideas  of  the  Development  and  Reconstruction,  together 
with  himself  as  the  necessary  central  figure  and  Messianic 
Personality  of  the  Scene.  ^ 

And  again :  — 

I  will  show  that  the  profane  Actor  was  a  Holy  Prophet.  "Nay, 
I  say  unto  thee  more  than  a  Prophet,"  the  Messiah.  Heine,  a 
Hebrew,  first  spoke  of  Stratford  as  the  northern  Bethlehem ;  I 
will  show  that  Heine  spoke  no  more  than  he  knew.^ 

Before  leaving  this  branch  of  our  subject,  —  his  religious 
nature,  —  it  may  be  well  to  remark  that  the  author  of 
"Shakespeare  and  Holy  Scripture,"  in  which  hundreds  of 
passages  from  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  are  paralleled  by 
passages  from  the  Bible,  finds  a  rival  in  the  author  of  "  Shake- 
speare's Relation  to  Montaigne,"^  who  parallels  many  of 
the  same  passages  by  others  in  the  celebrated  Frenchman's 
Essays.  We  had  selected  a  number  of  examples  of  these 
parallels  between  Shakspere  and  Holy  Scripture  with  cor- 
responding ones  from  Montaigne,  in  order  to  show  to  what 
extremes  such  efforts  may  be  carried ;  but,  to  avoid  prolixity, 
omit  them. 

The  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  we  are  told,  was 
a  great  lawyer.   Says  Lord  Campbell:  — 

Having  concluded  my  examination  of  Shakespeare's  juridical 
phrases  and  forensic  allusions,  on  the  retrospect,  I  am  amazed 
not  only  by  their  number,  but  by  the  accuracy  and  propriety 
with  which  they  are  uniformly  introduced.    There  is  nothing  so 

1  Charles  Downing,  The  Messiahship  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  ii,  104,  113. 
London,  1900.  Cf.  Rev.  Dr.  Scadding,  Shakespeare  the  Seer —  The  Interpreter^ 
etc.,  p.  53  et  seq.   Toronto,  1864. 

2  Clelia,  God  in  Shakespeare,  p.  15.   London,  1890. 

3  Charles  H.  Grandgent,  The  Relation  of  Shakespeare  to  Montaigne.  Balti- 
more, 1902.  Cf.  The  Long  Disiderated  Knowledge,  etc.,  of  Shakespeare,  ibid. 
London,  n.  d. 

21 


A- 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

dangerous  as  for  one  not  of  the  craft  to  tamper  with  our  free- 
masonry.^ 

And  Judge  Wilde,  one  of  the  first  of  English  jurists :  — 

The  writer  of  the  Shakespeare  plays  possessed  a  perfect  famil- 
iarity with  not  only  the  principles,  axioms,  and  maxims,  but  the 
technicalities  of  English  law,  a  knowledge  so  perfect  and  intimate 
that  he  was  never  incorrect  and  never  at  fault.  ^ 

And  Richard  Grant  White  declares:  — 

No  dramatist  of  the  time,  not  even  Beaumont,  who  was  the 
younger  son  of  a  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  and  who,  after 
studying  in  the  Inns  of  Court,  abandoned  law  for  the  drama,  used 
legal  phrases  with  Shakespeare's  readiness  and  exactness  —  legal 
phrases  flow  from  his  pen  as  part  of  his  vocabulary,  and  parcel  of 
his  thought.^ 

So  impressed  was  Malone  with  this,  and  with  the  impossi- 
bility of  reconciling  such  knowledge  with  the  known  literary 
equipment  of  the  actor,  that  he  ventured  upon  the  absurdity 
of  guessing  that  before  leaving  Stratford  he  had  studied  law 
in  company  with  Francis  Collins  who  subsequently  made  his 
will.^ 

The  knowledge  of  legal  terms,  and  the  apt  way  in  which 
they  are  applied  in  the  Works  are,  indeed,  remarkable.  The 
following  are  but  few  of  the  instances :  — 

Double  Vouchers,  Fee,  Entail,  ^Edificium,  Credit  sole.  Rever- 
sion, Enfeoffed,  Fine  and  Recovery,  In  capite.  Deed  of  Gift, 
Conveyance,  Mortgage  and  Lease,  Succession,  Uses  and  Trusts, 
Covenants,  Tripartite  Indentures,  Recognizances,  Forfeiture, 
Statutes,  Bonds,  Absque  hoc.  Acquittance,  Jointure,  Indictment, 
Arraignment,  Accessory,  Bail,  To  Enlarge,  The  Form  of  Oath, 

*  John  Lord  Campbell,  Shakespeare^ s  Legal  Acquirements y  etc.,  p.  127.  Lon- 
don, 1859. 

2  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  James  Plaisted  Wilde,  Baron  Penzance,  A  Judicial  Summing 
Up,  p.  83.   London,  1902. 

^  Richard  Grant  White,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  pp.  xlv,  xlvii. 
Boston,  1865. 

*  Edmund  Malone,  Esq.,  The  Plays  and  Poems  0/  William  Shakespeare,  vol. 
II,  p.  108.   London,  1821. 

22 


THE  THEME 

Appeal,  Nonsuit,  Defender,  Libel,  Precedent,  Repeal,  Impanelled 
Quest,  Tenants,  etc.,  etc. 

Reversion :  — 

As  were  our  England  in  reversion  his. 

Richard  II,  i,  4. 

Enfeoffed:  — 

Enfeoffed  himselfe  to  Popularitle. 

Henry  IV^  iii,  2, 

In  capite :  — 

Men  shall  hold  of  me  in  capite. 

Henry  F,  iv,  7. 

Extent:  — 

Make  an  extent  upon  his  house  and  land. 

Js  You  Like  It,  iii,  i. 

Lease  and  Determination :  — 

So  should  that  beauty  which  you  hold  in  lease 
Find  no  determination. 

Sonnet  xiii. 

In  Use,  Trust:  — 

The  other  half  in  use  to  render  it 
Upon  his  death  unto  this  gentleman. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  iv,  i. 

Succession  —  Intestate :  — 

Airy  succeeders  to  intestate  joys. 

Richard  III,  iv,  4. 

Indentures  tripartite :  — 

Indentures  tripartite  —  sealed  interchangeably. 

Henry  IV,  iii,  i. 

Specialties  and  Covenants :  — 

Let  specialties  be  therefore  drawn  between  us 
That  covenants  may  be  kept  on  either  hand. 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  11,  i. 

Serving  Precepts :  — 

Those  precepts  cannot  be  served. 

Henry  IV,  v,  I. 

23 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Campbell  quotes  the  following  from  "King  Lear"  to  show 

in  what  a  technical  manner  legal  phraseology  is  employed  in 

the  plays :  — 

And  of  my  land 

Loyal  and  natural  boy,  I'll  work  the  means 

To  make  thee  capable. 

He  also  calls  attention  to  an  ancient  custom,  mentioned  in 
"The  Winter's  Tale/'  which  he  thinks  was  known  only  to 
members  of  the  legal  profession,  of  prisoners  paying  fees  upon 
being  discharged  from  custody.^  The  quotation  is  as  follows : — 

Force  me  to  keep  you  as  a  prisoner  so  you  shall  pay  your  fees 
When  you  depart,  etc. 

And  to  the  technical  expression  of  commitment  to  prison :  — 

I'll  lay  ye  all 

By  the  heels  suddenly. 

Henry  VIII,  v,  4. 

These  are  but  a  few  examples  of  the  knowledge  of  legal 
procedure,  and  the  technical  phraseology  employed  by  men 
learned  in  the  practice  of  law,  which  are  to  be  found  in  the 
plays. 

We  are  also  told  that  the  author  of  the  plays,  by  whom  is 
meant  the  actor,  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  medicines, 
that  "his  maladies  are  many,  and  the  symptoms  very  well 
defined.  Diseases  of  the  nervous  system  seem  to  have  been 
a  favorite  study,  especially  insanity";^  and  "We  confess, 
almost  with  shame,  that  although  near  two  centuries  and  a 
half  have  passed  since  Shakespeare  thus  wrote,  we  have  very 
little  to  add  to  his  method  of  treating  the  insane"  f  moreover, 
he  "paid  more  attention  to  the  practice  of  medicine  than  to 

^  Lord  John  Campbell,  Legal  Acquirements y  etc.,  p.  127. 

2  B.  Rush  Field,  M.D.,  Medical  Thoughts  of  Shakespeare^  pp.  10,  13,  49,  59, 
86.   Easton,  Pa.,  1885. 

^  A.  O.  Kellogg,  M.D.,  Shakespeare^ s  Delineations  oj  Insanity^  Imbecility ^ 
and  Suicide,  p.  3.  New  York,  1856.  Cf.  D'Arcy  Power,  F.S.A.,  William  Harvey y 
etc.  New  York,  1897.  John  Redman  Coxe,  M.D.,  An  Inquiry  into  the  Claims 
oj,  etc.   Philadelphia,  1834. 

24 


THE  THEME 

surgery";  and  the  reason  given  for  this  is  that  in  his  time 
"surgery  had  not  reached  its  present  perfection,"  but  that 
''  a  more  probable  reason  may  have  been  that  his  son-in-law, 
Dr.  John  Hall,  from  whom  it  is  said  he  probably  received  his 
medical  education,  may  not  have  been  a  surgeon." 

Perhaps  it  is  well  to  note  that  Dr.  Hall  did  not  become  the 
actor's  son-in-law  until  1607,  after  the  plays  noted  were  writ- 
ten, especially  "Hamlet,"  in  which  this  knowledge  is  conspicu- 
ously displayed,  and  that,  as  he  was  but  thirty-one  at  this 
time,  he  could  have  been  but  eleven  years  old  at  most  when 
his  future  father-in-law  left  Stratford  for  London,  where  his 
biographers  claimed  he  lived  until  after  his  daughter's  mar- 
riage. 

It  is  true  that  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  was 
versed  surprisingly  well  in  the  science  of  disease ;  indeed,  he 
exhibits  at  times  a  knowledge  of  diseases  and  their  treatment 
possessed  only  by  the  best  medical  students  of  his  day.  Nor  is 
this  knowledge  comprised  within  narrow  limits,  but  embraces 
the  nervous,  circulatory,  respiratory,  digestive,  and  secretory 
systems;  of  fevers,  of  the  action  of  medicine,  of  surgery, 
fecundation,  pregnancy,  and  even  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood. 

He  puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  charac- 
ters :  — 

Tis  knowne  I  ever  have  studied  Physicke;  ^ 

Through  which  secret  Art,  by  turning  ore  Authorities, 

I  have  togeather  with  my  practice,  made  famyliar, 

To  me  and  to  my  ayde,  the  best  infusions  that  dwels 

In  Vegetives,  in  Mettals,  Stones;  and  can  speak  of 

Disturbances  that  Nature  works,  and  of  her  cures; 

Which  doth  give  me  more  content  in  course  of  true  delight 

Then  to  be  thirsty  after  tottering  honour,  or 

Tie  my  pleasure  up  in  silken  Bagges 

To  please  the  Foole  and  death. 

Pericles^  iii,  2. 

*  This  is  suggestive  of  the  same  remark  by  Bacon,  "I  have  been  puddering 
with  physic  all  my  life." 

25 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

An  Opiate:  — 

There  is 
No  clanger  in  what  shew  of  death  it  makes, 
More  than  the  locking  up  the  Spirits  a  time, 
To  be  more  fresh,  reviving. 

Cymbeline,  I,  6. 

Value  of  Sleep:  — 

Our  foster  Nurse  of  Nature,  is  repose, 
The  which  he  lacks;  that  to  provoke  in  him 
Are  many  Simples  operative,  whose  power 
Will  close  the  eye  of  Anguish. 

Lear,  iv,  4. 

I  ago.  My  Lord  is  falne  into  an  Epilepsie 

This  is  his  second  Fit;  he  had  one  yesterday. 
Cas.   Rub  him  about  the  Temples. 
lago.  The  Lethargie  must  have  his  quyet  course. 

Othello,  IV,  I. 

Sciatica:  — 

Thou  cold  Sciatica 
Cripple  our  Senators,  that  their  limbes  may  halt 
As  lamely  as  their  Manners. 

Timon  of  Athens,  iv,  i. 

Tremor  Cordis :  — 

I  have  Tremor  Cordis  on  me;  my  heart  daunces. 

The  Winter^ s  Tale,  i,  2. 

Pleurisy :  — 

For  goodnes,  growing  to  a  plurisie. 
Dies  in  his  owne  too-much. 

Hamlet,  iv,  7. 

Leprosy :  — 

Gold!  Yellow,  glittering,  precious  Gold? 

This  yellow  Slave, 

Will  knit  and  breake  Religions,  blesse  th'  accurst 

Make  the  hoare  Leprosie  ador'd. 

Timon  0}  Athens,  iv,  3. 

Ague : — 

Home  without  Bootes 
And  in  foule  Weather  too.  How  scapes  he  Agues  ? 

Henry  IF,  iii,  i. 
26 


THE  THEME 

Rheumatism:  — 

Rheumatick  diseases  doe  abound 
And  through  this  distemperature,  we  see 
The  seasons  alter. 

A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream,  ii,  I. 

Insanity:  — 

And  he  repulsed.   A  Short  Tale  to  make 
Fell  into  a  Sadnesse:  then  into  a  Fast 
Thence  to  a  Watch,  thence  into  a  Weaknesse, 
Thence  to  a  Lightnesse,  and  by  this  declension 
Into  the  Madnesse  whereon  now  he  raves. 

Hamlet,  ii,  2. 

Apoplexy :  — 

Peace  is  a  very  Apoplexy,  Lethargie,  mulled,  deafe,  sleepe,  Insensible. 

Coriolanus,  iv,  5. 

Consumption :  — 

Consumptions  sowe 
In  hollow  bones  of  man,  strike  their  sharpe  shinnes, 
And  marre  mens  spurring. 

Timon  0}  Athens,  iv,  3. 

Drugs:  — 

I  have  bought 
The  Oyle,  the  Balsamum,  and  Aqua-vitae. 

Comedy  of  Errors,  iv,  I. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  several  of  the  plays  reflect 
Harvey's  theory  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  which  was  not 
given  to  the  world  until  1628,  twelve  years  after  the  death  of 
the  actor.  The  following  excerpts  support  the  theory  that  the 
author  of  the  plays  had  a  preexistent  knowledge  of  Harvey's 
theory:  — 

My  heart 
The  Fountaine  from  which  my  currant  runnes 
Or  else  dries  up. 

Othello,  IV,  2. 

Your  pulsidge  beats  as  extraordinarily  as  heart  would  desire. 

Henry  IF,  Part  II,  11,  4. 
27 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

I  send  it  through  the  Rivers  of  your  Blood 
Even  to  the  Court,  the  Heart,  to  th'  seate  o'  th'  Braine, 
And  through  the  Crankes  (windings)  and  Offices  of  man 
The  strongest  Nerves,  and  small  inferiour  Veines 
From  me  receive  that  naturall  competencie 
Whereby  they  live. 

CoriolanuSy  i,  i. 

It  is  proper  to  remark  that  Bacon  was  a  friend  of  Harvey, 
and  often  must  have  discussed  with  him  his  then  novel  theory. 
On  one  occasion  the  doctor  paid  the  philosopher  the  witty 
compliment  that  he  "wrote  philosophy  like  a  Lord  Chan- 
cellor." The  amusing  old  gossip,  Aubrey,  imagined  that  the 
remark  was  intended  to  be  derisive,  missing  the  better  mean- 
ing that  a  Lord  Chancellor  stood  for  the  highest  authority. 

The  scientific  knowledge  possessed  by  the  author  of  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works,  especially  of  natural  history,  has  been 
commented  upon,  and  a  large  volume  has  been  published  with 
a  reprint  of  portions  of  works  on  natural  history  of  his  time. 
We  are  informed  in  the  preface  that  "The  plan  of  the  book  is 
to  give  some  illustration  of  each  word  mentioned  by  Shak- 
spere,  when  there  is  nothing  remarkable  to  be  noted  about  it. 
The  term  'natural  history'  has  been  taken  in  its  widest  sense, 
as  including  not  only  fauna  but  flora,  as  well  as  some  precious 
stones."  ^  The  perusal  of  this  book  shows  us  how  intimate  a 
knowledge  of  the  natural  history  of  his  age  was  possessed  by 
the  author  of  the  "  Shakespeare"  Works,  but  no  more  so  than 
the  works  themselves,  and  adds  too  little  to  our  knowledge  to 
require  extended  comment. 

His  knowledge  of  gardens  and  plants  was  wide,  and  a  book 
of  nearly  four  hundred  pages  embellished  with  a  frontispiece 
of  an  ideal  "New  Place,"  and  sumptuous  garden,  which  in  the 
actor's  day  would  have  set  Stratford  wild,  has  already  passed 
through  three  editions. 

The  author  of  this  work,  introduces  his  subject  to  us  in  his 

1  H.  W.  Seager,  M.B.,  Natural  History  in  Shakespeare^ s  Time,  p.  5.  London, 
1886. 

28 


THE  THEME 

preface,  as  "A  soldier,  a  sailor,  a  lawyer,  an  astronomer,  a 
physician,  a  divine,  a  printer,  an  actor,  a  courtier,  a  sports- 
man, an  angler,"  and  he  adds,  "  I  know  not  what  else  besides" ; 
and  he  tells  us,  too,  that  "He  gathers  flowers"  for  us  from  the 
"turfy  mountains"  and  the  "flat  meads";  from  the  "bosky 
acres"  and  the  "unshrubbed  down";  from  "rose  banks"  and 
"hedges  even  pleached."  But  he  is  equally  at  home  in  the 
gardens  of  the  country  gentlemen  with  their  "pleached  bow- 
ers and  leafy  orchards."  Nor  is  he  a  stranger  to  gardens  of 
much  higher  pretension,  "for  he  will  pick  us  famous  Straw- 
berries from  the  garden  of  my  Lord  of  Elgin  in  Holborn ;  he 
will  pick  us  White  and  Red  roses  from  the  garden  of  the 
Temple ;  and  he  will  pick  us  Apricoks  from  the  Royal  garden 
of  Richard  the  Second's  sad  queen."  ^ 

That  he  was  a  musical  genius  and  "allied  himself  to  the 
Divine  Art,"  a  musical  critic  declares.  "  Few  of  the  readers 
of  Shakespeare,"  he  says,  "are  aware  of  how  much  of  his 
musical  material  can  be  traced  home;  many  are  unable  to  fol- 
low some  of  the  poet's  most  subtle  metaphors  because  they 
are  unfamiliar  with  the  musical  works  to  which  he  refers,  or 
with  the  song  or  melody  which  enriches  the  scene."  ^ 

These  examples  of  the  marvelous  genius  of  the  author  of 
the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  perhaps  ought  to  be  sufficient,  but 
our  patience  is  daily  abused  by  writers  perniciously  active  in 
making  discoveries  of  new  ones  which  they  thrust  upon  us  in 
tedious  books.  As,  for  instance,  we  are  gravely  informed  by 
one  author  that  he  had  a  penchant  for  astronomy ;  ^  by  another 
that  he  was  accomplished  in  the  art  piscatorical;^  and  yet 
another  presents  him  to  us  as  an  equestrian,  "riding  along  the 

1  Henry  N.  Ellacombe,  M.A.,  The  Plant  Lore  and  Garden  Craft  of  Shake- 
speare, pp.  xi,  xiv,  XV.  Cf.  Leonard  Holmesworthe,  William  Shakespeare's 
Botanical  Knowledge,  Leamington  Spa,  1906.  S.  Beisley,  Shakespeare's  Garden, 
London,  1864. 

2  Louis  C.  Elson,  Shakespeare  in  Music,  p.  354.   Boston,  1901. 

3  Thomas  Lane,  Shakespeare  under  the  Stars,  or  his  Genius  and  Works  in  the 
Light  of  Astronomy.    London,  1887. 

*  Henry  Nicholson  Ellacombe,  Shakspere  as  an  Angler.   London,  1883. 

29. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

narrow  lanes,"  and  having  "from  his  mother  (a  gentlewoman 
be  it  remembered  by  birth  and  breeding)  derived  the  instincts 
and  feelings  of  a  true  gentleman,  with  a  taste  for  art  and  lit- 
erature which  tempered  the  bold  and  manly  spirit  inherited 
from  his  father."^  Really,  we  can  but  wonder  that  Zincke  or 
Holder  or  some  other  of  the  numerous  fakers  of  his  "original" 
portraits  did  not  exhibit  him  to  us  on  horseback. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works  was  a  great  poet  and  a  great  philosopher;  that  he 
possessed  a  mind  stored  with  all  the  lore  of  his  age,  lingual, 
biblical,  legal,  scientific,  historical,  medical,  and  musical ;  in- 
deed, that  he  was  in  power  of  expression  the  greatest  literary 
genius  that  has  yet  adorned  the  world  of  letters ;  nor  is  it  an 
idle  claim  that  there  was  living  in  London  at  the  time  the 
works  were  written,  one  man,  and  one  man  only,  who  in  a 
large  degree  exemplified  these  requirements;  a  philosopher,^ 
a  "concealed  poet,"  to  use  his  own  words ;  ^  a  learned  linguist,^ 
Biblical  student,^  lawyer,^  scientist,^  historian,^  author  of 
treatises  on  medicine,^  natural  history, ^°  gardens,  ^^  music. ^^ 
This  man  was  Francis  Bacon,  who  took  all  knowledge  for  his 
province.  Most  of  the  sentiments,  however,  which  we  have 
quoted  —  and  we  have  spared  the  reader  by  selecting  as  few 
as  possible  to  illustrate  our  subject  —  would  be  the  grossest 
exaggeration  if  applied  to  the  greatest  genius  of  any  age. 
There  is  no  knowing  to  what  extremes  devotees  of  the 

^  C.  E.,  Shakespeare  on  Horseback,  pp.  3-4.     1887. 

^  Novum  Organum.   Spedding,  vol.  i,  pp.  129-93. 

'  Poesy-part  of  Learning.  Spedding,  vol.  vi,  pp.  202-06;  vol.  viii,  pp. 
440-44. 

*  De  Augmentis.   Spedding,  vol.  ix,  pp.  1 12-14;  vol.  xii,  p.  137. 

5  Bacon*s  Creed  and  Essay  on  Unity.  Spedding,  vol.  xiv,  pp.  41-57;  vol.  xii, 
pp.  86-92. 

®  Professional  Works.   Spedding,  vol.  xv. 

^  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum.   Spedding,  vol.  11,  p.  ill. 

^  History  of  Henry  VII.   Spedding,  vol.  xi. 

®  Advancement  of  Learning.  Spedding,  vol.  vi,  pp.  236-54;  vol.  ix,  pp.  23-47. 
^°  Natural  History.  Spedding,  vol.  viii,  pp.  409-18;  vol.  x,  pp.  405-18. 
^^  Gardens.  Spedding,  vol.  iv,  pp.  354-460. 
12  Experiments  in  consort  touching  music.   Spedding,  vol.  iv,  pp.  225-98. 

30 


THE  THEME 

Stratfordian  cult  might  have  carried  their  efforts,  had  not  a 
halt  been  called  by  Bacon's  introduction  to  them  as  a  claim- 
ant to  the  authorship  of  "The  Greatest  Birth  of  Time."  Not 
only  have  their  unwise  panegyrics  ceased,  but  since  the  light 
has  been  turned  upon  the  object  of  their  devotion,  they  have 
bent  their  efforts  to  the  Sisyphean  task  of  proving  that  he  was 
deficient  in  the  knowledge  which  they  had  hitherto  ascribed 
to  him;  in  fact,  that  it  was  not  the  result  of  study  and  intel- 
lectual training,  but  being  the  common  possession  of  the  time 
in  which  he  lived  he  simply  helped  himself  therefrom.  It 
would  seem  that  rightly  to  avail  one's  self  of  such  a  varied 
store  would  require  not  only  a  mind  "saturated"  with  knowl- 
edge, according  to  Furnivall,  but  intellectual  training  of  a 
high  degree.  Especially  do  they  now  disparage  the  classical 
and  legal  erudition  displayed  in  the  works  which  they  for- 
merly extolled.  Doubtless,  unprejudiced  minds  will  prefer  the 
opinions  of  Upton,  Collins,  Baynes,  Lord  Campbell,  Justice 
Wilde,  Judge  Holmes,  and  other  eminent  scholars  and  ju- 
rists, to  those  of  partisans  who  have  shown  themselves  to  be 
so  untrustworthy.  Of  these  we  have  less  hope  than  of  those 
who  deck  the  object  of  their  devotion  with  meretricious  gar- 
lands, though  we  agree  with  Tolstoy  that  their  "effort  to  dis- 
cover in  him  non-existent  merits,  thereby  destroying  aesthetic 
and  ethical  understandings,  is  a  great  evil,  as  is  every  untruth."^ 

^  Leo  Tolstoy,  Shakespeare,  p.  6.   New  York  and  London,  1906. 


Ill 

THE  GHOST   OF  HAMLET 

WILLIAM   SHAKSPERE    OF   STRATFORD 

"This  is  a  parlous  world,"  says  an  old  thinker,  "because 
of  its  errors,"  and,  unhappily,  its  errors  outnumber  its  truths. 
Were  it  not  for  this,  the  above  title  would  never  have  been 
penned,  and  the  world  would  have  been  saved  from  much 
distracting  controversy;  yet  an  eminent  philosopher  tells  us 
that  there  is  "A  law  of  compensation  universal  in  its  action"; 
and  so  even  in  controversy  may  we  not  expect  it  to  serve  a 
beneficent  end,  since  many  a  precious  truth  has  been  picked 
out  of  the  sludge  of  dissent  ? 

Whatever  the  manner  in  which  some  have  expressed  their 
sentiments  with  regard  to  the  subject  we  are  now  to  consider, 
we  can  hardly  exaggerate  the  influence  which  the  works  bear- 
ing the  name  "Shakespeare"  have  exerted  on  the  English- 
speaking  world.  Had  not  the  author  of  these  works  been 
born,  Elizabethan  literature  would  have  been  a  failure;  in- 
deed, what  the  immensity  of  the  loss  to  the  literary  world  of 
to-day  would  have  been  is  beyond  conjecture;  certainly  a 
greater  loss  than  if  Pisistratus  had  failed  to  give  the  Homeric 
poems  to  Hellas,  important  as  that  act  was  in  quickening  the 
national  spirit  and  uniting  the  Hellenic  peoples.  No  thought- 
ful mind  can  fail  to  appreciate  the  inestimable  importance  of 
the  "Shakespeare"  Works  to  mankind;  no  heart,  which  is 
attuned  to  the  love  of  genius  but  desires  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  immortal  genius  who  was  their  author.  Yet,  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  the  paternity  of  this  "Greatest  Birth  of  Time" 
is  in  question,  and  the  world  is  about  equally  divided  upon  it ; 
many  holding  to  the  earlier  faith  that  it  belongs  to  the  Strat- 

32 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

ford  actor,  and  others  to  the  later,  that  it  should  be  ascribed 
to  Francis  Bacon.  This  is  a  question  which  demands  careful 
scrutiny,  a  mind  open  to  conviction,  and,  to  reach  a  satis- 
factory conclusion,  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  two 
men,  and  with  their  works.  We  must  compare  their  char- 
acters, satisfy  ourselves  whether  both  are  competent  to  be  the 
author  of  this  prodigy,  and  whether  it  reflects  the  lineaments 
of  both  or  either.  To  do  this  we  must  apply  ourselves  to  the 
history  of  their  lives,  and,  first,  to  that  of  the  actor;  in  his 
case  a  narrow  field  which  has  been  ably  if  unprofitably  cul- 
tivated. Rowe,  Steevens,  Malone,  Knight,  Symmons,  Halli- 
well-Phillipps,  White,  Lee,  and  many  others  whom  we  shall 
quote  in  the  progress  of  our  study,  have  labored  persistently 
in  it,  and  have  produced  results  in  certain  respects  worthy  of 
admiration.  For  present  purposes  we  will  consider  the  bio- 
graphy by  Knight,  which  forms  an  entire  volume  of  his  volu- 
minous edition  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  who,  to  lend 
importance  to  his  subject,  which  he  realizes  we  know  little 
about,  devotes  ample  space  at  the  outset  to  prove  that  he  was 
of  heroic  extraction.  To  do  this  it  seems  necessary  to  connect 
him  with  some  important  historic  event,  and  so  he  selects  the 
"22nd  of  August,  1485,"  when  "There  was  a  battle  fought 
for  the  crown  of  England.  The  battlefield  was  Bosworth." 
He  then  asks  this  question :  — 

Was  there  in  that  victorious  army  of  the  Earl  of  Richmond, 
which  Richard  denounced  as  a  "  company  of  traitors,  thieves, 
outlaws,  and  runagates,"  an  Englishman  bearing  the  name  of 
Chacksper,  or  Shakespeyre,  or  Schakespere,  or  Schakespeire,  or 
Schakspere,  or  Shakespere,  or  Shaksper,  a  martial  name,  how- 
ever spelt  .^ 

There  certainly  ought  to  have  been,  but  old  chronicles,  ever 
so  diligently  searched,  fail,  alas!  to  show  the  name.  But  it 
ought  to  have  been  recorded,  and  though  it  was  not,  the  name 
alone  should  be  sufficient  to  convince  the  most  skeptical  of 
John  Shakspere's  heroic  descent.  Of  course  such  a  man  must 

33 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

have  a  coat  of  arms,  and,  referring  to  the  statements  made  to 
obtain  them,  Knight  exclaims :  — 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  these  statements  were  the  rodomontades 
of  heraldry  —  honours  bestowed  for  mere  mercenary  considera- 
tions upon  any  pretenders  to  gentle  blood.  There  was  strict  in- 
quiry if  they  were  unworthily  bestowed.  Two  centuries  and  a  half 
ago  such  honours  were  of  grave  importance,  and  there  is  a  solem- 
nity of  tone  in  these  very  documents. 

Having  satisfied  himself  that  a  coat  of  arms  was  really  be- 
stowed, he  again  exclaims :  — 

And  so  forever  after  he  was  no  more  goodman  Shakspere,  or 
John  Shakspere,  yeoman,  but  Master  Shakspere.^ 

But  we  will  spare  the  reader  more  of  these  rodomontades. 
Sufficient  has  been  quoted  to  show  with  what  facility  a  bio- 
grapher may  dispose  of  important  questions  of  genealogy, 
and  confuse  readers  by  a  plethora  of  verbiage. 

The  fact  is,  the  first  application  for  arms  by  John  Shakspere 
in  1568-69  was  fruitless.  In  1596,  aided  by  the  actor,  another 
application  was  made,  coupled  with  a  request  for  permission 
to  impale  the  arms  of  Mary  Arden,  his  wife.  In  this  case  a 
false  statement  of  her  ancestry  was  made,  and  so  it  was  held 
up  by  the  heralds  for  three  years.  In  1599,  the  actor  having 
purchased  New  Place,  another  application  was  made  request- 
ing the  recognition  of  the  coat  of  arms  of  1596,  and  the  right  of 
the  grantee  to  impale,  and  the  other  members  of  his  family 
to  quarter  thereon,  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  Ardens  of  Wilme- 
cote.  At  this  the  heralds  again  balked,  realizing  that  this 
influential  family  would  protest  against  it;  and,  finally,  an 
Arden  family  residing  in  Cheshire  was  found  bearing  no  rela- 
tion to  the  Wilmecote  Ardens.  The  remoteness  of  this  family 
rendered  interference  improbable,  but  it  might  prove  trouble- 
some, and  so  the  question  of  an  Arden  impalement  was 
dropped.  The  request,  however,  for  recognition  was  granted. 

*  Charles  Knight,  William  Shakspere.  A  Biography,  pp.  3-8,  New  York, 
i860. 

34 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

This  irregular  procedure  aroused  criticism,  and  objections  were 
raised  against  it  on  the  ground  of  legalizing  an  infringement, 
but  nothing  was  done,  and  it  was  subsequently  used  by  the 
family.  This  is  why  it  has  been  claimed  that  a  coat  of  arms 
to  John  Shakspere  was  never  legally  granted.  The  proceed- 
ings connected  with  these  transactions  are  discreditable  to 
all  concerned.^ 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  nearly  every  page  of  Knight's  bio- 
graphy of  the  actor  is  pleasing  fiction ;  indeed.  Knight  himself 
is  obliged  to  admit  this,  for  he  says :  — 

The  two  mottoes  in  the  title-page  express  the  principle  upon 
which  this  Biography  has  been  written.  That  from  Steevens 
shows,  with  a  self-evident  exaggeration  of  its  author,  how  scanty 
are  the  materials  for  a  life  of  Shakspere  properly  so  called.  In- 
deed, every  Life  of  him  must,  to  a  certain  extent,  be  conjectural 
and  all  the  Lives  that  have  been  written  are  in  great  part  con- 
jectural. My  Biography  is  only  so  far  more  conjectural  than  any 
other  as  regards  the  form  which  it  assumes;  by  which  it  has 
been  endeavored  to  associate  Shakspere  with  the  circumstances 
around  him,  in  a  manner  which  may  fix  them  in  the  mind  of  the 
reader  by  exciting  his  interest.^ 

The  motto  from  Steevens  is  as  follows :  — 

All  that  is  known  with  any  degree  of  certainty  concerning 
Shakspere  is,  —  that  he  was  born  at  Stratford-upon-Avon, 
married,  and  had  children  there,  —  went  to  London,  where  he 
commenced  actor,  and  wrote  poems  and  plays,  —  returned  to 
Stratford,  made  his  will,  died,  and  was  buried. 

This,  indeed,  is  more  than  is  really  known  of  him,  yet  bio- 
graphies like  Knight's  have  been  composed  according  to  this 
formula:  given  a  personality,  when  born  and  married,  occu- 
pation, if  possible,  —  death  can  be  left  out,  as  it  happens  to 
all,  —  fit  this  personality  into  the  history  of  a  period,  and  the 
result  is,  if  the  composer  has  artistic  skill,  a  biography  quite 

^  Herald  and  Genealogist,  vol.  i,  p.  510;  Miscellanea  Genealogica  et  Heraldica, 
vol.  I,  p.  109,  1886. 

2  Charles  Knight,  William  Shakspere.  A  Biography.  Preface. 

35 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

satisfactory  to  the  general  reader,  much  more  so  than  an 
attempt  recently  made  to  deduce  from  the  works  the  veiled 
life  story  of  their  author. 

Judge  Holmes  must  have  had  such  writers  as  Knight  in 
mind  when  he  exclaimed :  — 

Does  not  any  man  feel  an  unutterable  indignation  when  he 
discovers  (after  long  years  of  thought  and  study,  perhaps)  that 
he  has  been  all  the  while  misled  by  false  instruction,  and  that, 
consequently,  the  primest  sources  of  truth  have  been  left  lumber- 
ing his  shelves  In  neglect  while  he  has  been  put  off  and  befooled 
by  paltry  child's  fables.^ 

Let  us,  irrespective  of  the  authors  we  have  named,  attempt 
a  full  exposition  of  everything  of  an  authentic  and  even  tradi- 
tional nature  in  the  life  of  the  Stratford  actor,  though  every- 
thing relating  to  him  has  been  so  often  raked  over  that  we 
would  be  glad  to  leave  this  old  straw  undisturbed  were  it  not 
necessary  to  the  substance  of  this  history. 

At  the  time  of  his  baptism,  April  26,  1564,  which  following 
the  usual  custom  would  be  three  days  after  his  birth,  the  little 
town  of  Stratford  had  a  population  of  about  fourteen  hundred. 
The  houses,  two  or  three  hundred  in  number,  were  small, 
rudely  built  of  mud  or  wood,  and  roofed  with  thatch ;  even 
the  few  with  a  pretense  to  comfort  and  distinction  would  be 
poor  enough  in  our  time.  These  were  scattered  about  with 
little  regularity,  as  such  towns  were  then  built,  and  here  and 
there  were  sluggish  ditches  and  turbid  pools,  unsuspected 
allies  of  those  mysterious  diseases  which  too  often  afflicted 
the  simple  people.  Little  regard  was  paid  to  the  condition  of 
the  streets  if  we  may  believe  the  unvarying  annals  of  English 
towns  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,^  for  John,  the 
father  of  the  actor,  was  indicted  in  1552  for  maintaining  a 
manure  heap  in  the  public  street. 

^  Nathaniel  Holmes,  The  Authorship  of  Shakespeare,  p.  x.  New  York,  1866. 
2  Stuart  A.  Moore,  Letters  of  John  Shillingford,  London,  1871.    Cf.  Mrs. 
J.  R.  Green,  Town  Life  in  the  Fifteenth  Century,  New  York,  1894.  Goadby,  The 
England  of  Shakespeare. 

36 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

There  were  in  the  town  a  court-leet,  a  guild  and  chapel  of 
the  Holy  Cross,  with  a  free  school.  The  most  important 
building  was  the  church,  and  this  must  have  added  a  note  of 
distinction  to  the  place ;  besides,  to  give  it  a  homely  aspect, 
there  were  simple  gardens  about  the  better  houses,  and  on  the 
common  land  sheep  browsed  peacefully,  and  swine  scurried 
about  the  ban-croft,  while  not  far  away  were  outlying  fields 
and  bosky  river  banks.  It  was  the  home  of  poor  but  industri- 
ous folk  plying  many  useful  trades,  unlettered,  of  course,  as 
but  very  few  were  able  to  read  or  write.  Such  was  the  actor's 
father  who  plied  the  petty  trade  of  butcher  and  skinner,  or 
glover,  if  selling  skins  made  him  one.  The  best  thing  he  did 
was  making  a  good  marriage  in  1557  with  Mary  Arden,  who 
brought  him  a  jointure  of  one  hundred  and  ten  pounds,  thir- 
teen shillings,  fourpence,  which  the  poor  butcher  much  needed. 
True,  she  was  illiterate,  unable  even  to  write  her  name,  but 
neither  could  her  husband.  Much  has  been  written  of  her 
"gentle  birth.''  Halliwell-Phillipps  frankly  refutes  this  view 
and  gives  a  graphic  description  of  the  rude  surroundings 
of  her  home  deduced  from  the  inventory  of  her  father's  estate.^ 
This  marriage  was  of  the  greatest  importance  to  John  Shak- 
spere's  future,  and  gave  him  distinction  among  his  simple 
neighbors ;  so  that  from  a  juror  in  the  little  court-leet,^  he  was 
made  the  year  following  an  ale-taster;  in  1558,  a  burgess;  in 
1559)  a  constable;  in  1560,  an  affeeror;  ^  in  1561,  a  chamber- 
lain; *  in  1565,  an  alderman;  and  in  1568,  a  bailiff;  ^  but,  alas! 
when  his  son  William  was  thirteen  years  of  age,  John  Shak- 
spere  was  in  financial  straits.  For  some  time  he  was  absent 
from  nearly  all  the  meetings  of  the  aldermen,  and  finally  be- 
came so  careless  of  his  public  duties  that  he  was  deposed  from 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  28>^London,  1882. 
2  A   recorder's   court,  held   annually  before   the   steward   of  the  leet  or 
district. 

^  An  affeeror  determined  fines  arbitrarily  imposed. 

*  A  chamberlain  was  the  town  treasurer.  "^ 

5  A  bailiff  in  this  case  was  the  highest  of  the  town  officials. 

37 


h 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

office,  as  appears  by  the  following  entry  on  the  Town  Rec- 
ords :  — 

1586,  September  6.  At  thys  halle  Wiir  Smythe  and  Richard 
Cowrte  are  chosen  to  be  Aldermen  in  the  place  of  John  Wheeler 
and  John  Shaxspere  for  that  Mr.  Wheeler  dothe  desyre  to  be  put 
owt  of  the  companye  and  Mr.  Shaxspere  dothe  not  come  to  the 
Halles  wheji  they  be  warne'^  nor  hath  not  done  of  longe  tyme.^ 

He  had  been  distracted  by  suits  for  debt,  and,  according 
to  a  writ  returned  on  the  19th  of  January  of  the  previous  year, 
"He  had  no  goods  upon  which  distraint  could  be  made,"  and 
the  issuance  of  a  writ  oi  habeas  corpus,  March  29, 1584,  reveals 
the  fact  that  he  was  then  in  prison. 

Knight  and  others  try  to  show  that  the  reason  for  his  son's 
withdrawal  from  school  at  so  early  an  age  was  not  due  to  his 
father's  poverty,  but  it  seems  unnecessary  to  argue  this  point. 
It  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  know  that  what  little  educa- 
tion in  the  humble  school  of  Stratford  John  Shakspere's  son 
could  have  obtained,  ended  in  or  before  1578.  That  he  at- 
tended school  and  assisted  his  father  in  slaughtering  calves  is 
supported  by  reasonable  traditions  which  we  cannot  ignore,  for 
a  great  deal  of  history  rests  upon  no  securer  foundation.  These 
traditions,  mere  hearsay  babble  if  you  please  of  garrulous 
greybeards,  probably  are  true  in  considerable  measure. 

Says  John  Aubrey,  who  is  supposed  to  have  visited  Strat- 
ford in  search  of  literary  material  about  forty-six  years  after 
Shakspere's  death :  — 

Mr.  WilHam  Shakespear  was  born  at  Stratford-upon-Avon 
in  the  county  of  Warwick.  His  father  was  a  butcher,  and  I  have 
been  told  heretofore  by  some  of  the  neighbours,  that  when  he  was 
a  boy  he  exercised  his  father's  trade,  but  when  he  kill'd  a  calfe 
he  would  do  it  in  a  high  style,  and  make  a  speech.  There  was  at 
that  time  another  butcher's  son  in  this  towne  that  was  held  not 
at  all  inferior  to  him  for  a  natural  witt,  his  acquaintance  and 
coetanean,  but  dyed  young.  This  William  being  inclined  natu- 
rally to  poetry  and  acting,  came  to  London,  I  guesse,  about  18; 

^  Joseph  William  Gray,  Shakespeare^ s  Marriage y  etc.  London,  1905. 

38 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

and  was  an  actor  at  one  of  the  playhouses,  and  did  act  exceed- 
ingly well.  He  was  wont  to  goe  to  his  native  countrey  once  a 
yeare.  I  thinke  I  have  been  told  that  he  left  2  or  300  /.  per  annum 
there  and  thereabout  to  a  sister. 

Aubrey  has  been  sharply  criticized  for  looseness  of  state- 
ment, not  always  impartially.  While  he  may  have  been  care- 
less in  his  method  of  gathering  traditions  of  the  Stratford 
actor,  he  seems  to  have  faithfully  recorded  them.  A  good  deal 
that  he  relates  was  given  him  by  William  Castle,  the  eighty- 
year-old  clerk,  who  showed  him  the  bust  of  the  actor  and  the 
curious  inscription  upon  his  tomb.  He  had  shown  them 
scores  of  times  before  with  all  the  grave  complacency  of  the 
local  antiquary,  and  much  that  he  told  his  fellow  gossip  pos- 
sesses a  striking  verisimilitude.  The  story  that  he  and  another 
butcher  boy  when  they  killed  a  calf  would  imitate  the  players 
who  delighted  the  rustic  boydom  of  Stratford  with  their  mock 
heroics,  and  mouthed  some  familiar  line,  as  boys  ever  have 
done  under  suggestive  circumstances,  has  a  touch  of  nature. 
How  natural,  as  the  knife  was  raised  over  the  victim,  for  the 
stage-struck  boys  to  repeat  the  line  that  had  often  thrilled 
fhem:  "Die,  wretch,  down,  down  to  hell  and  face  thy 
doom!" 

Aubrey  says  he  was  told  that  the  actor  was  "  a  handsome  and 
well  shap't  man,  very  good  company,  and  of  a  very  readie  and 
pleasant  smooth  wit,''  which  he  illustrates  by  quoting  some 
doggerel  said  to  have  been  perpetrated  at  a  village  tavern. 
He  also  declares  that  he  had  "little  Latin  and  lesse  Greek," 
to  which  others  testify,  and  that  he  had  been  in  his  "younger 
yeares  a  schoolmaster  in  the  countrey."  ^  The  statement  that 
he  had  been  a  schoolmaster,  as  well  as  the  amount  of  property 
said  to  have  been  left  his  sister,  has  been  properly  enough  dis- 
credited. 

The  Reverend  John  Ward,  who  was  Vicar  of  Stratford-on- 

1  Andrew  Clark,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  Brief  Lives,  etc.,  Set  down  by  John  Aubrey, 
i66q-i6q6,  pp.  174,  180,  225-27.  Oxford,  1898. 

39 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Avon,  in  notes  in  a  commonplace  book  written  in  1661-62, 
says :  — 

I  have  heard  y*  Mr.  Shakespear  was  a  natural  wit,  without  any 
art  at  all;  hee  frequented  y^  plays  all  his  younger  time,  but  in  his 
elder  days  lived  at  Stratford.  Shakespear,  Drayton  and  Ben 
Johnson  had  a  merrie  meeting,  and  itt  seems  drank  too  hard,  for 
Shakespear  died  of  a  feavour  there  contracted.^ 

The  following,  written  by  the  Reverend  Richard  Davies 
at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  presents  to  us  the 
future  actor  as 

Much  given  to  all  unluckinesse  in  stealing  venison  and  Rabbits, 
particularly  from  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  who  had  him  oft  whip't  and 
sometimes  imprisoned  and  at  last  made  him  fly  his  native  coun- 
try to  his  great  advancem^,  but  his  reveng  was  so  great  that  he  is 
his  Justice  Clodpate  and  calls  him  a  great  man,  and  y'  in  allusion 
to  his  name  bore  three  lowses  rampant  for  his  arms  .  .  .  He  dyed 
a  papist.^ 

John  Dowdall  wrote  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Edward  Southwell, 
dated  April  10,  1693  :  — 

The  first  remarkable  place  in  this  country  that  I  visitted,  was 
Stratford-super-Avon,  where  I  saw  the  effigies  of  our  English 
tragedian,  Mr.  Shakspeare:  The  clarke  that  shewd  me  this 
church  is  above  80  y*"^  old ;  he  says  that  this  Shakespear  was  for- 
merly in  this  Towne  bound  apprentice  to  a  butcher;  but  that  he 
Run  from  his  master  to  London  &  there  was  Rec"^  into  the  play 
house  as  a  serviture  &  by  this  meanes  had  an  opportunity  to  be 
w^  he  afterwards  prov'd.  He  was  the  best  of  his  family  but  the 
male  Line  is  extinguish'd.  Not  one  for  feare  of  the  Curse  aboves*^ 
Dare  Touch  his  Grave  Stone  tho  his  wife  and  Daughters  Did 
earnestly  Desire  to  be  Layd  in  the  same  Grave  w^^  him.^ 

Dowdall's  visit  to  Stratford  was  very  near  the  time  of 
Aubrey's  visit,  and  the  clerk  who  told  him  about  the  dead 
actor  was  William  Castle. 

1  Charles  Severn,  M.D.,  Diary  of  Rev.  John  Ward,  A.M.  London,  1839. 

^  In  notes  to  the  Journal  of  Rev.  Wm.  Fulmer,  now  in  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Oxford. 

3  Traditionary  Annecdotes  of  Shakespeare :  Collected  in  1693,  pp.  11,  12. 
London,  1838. 

40 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

Nicholas  Rowe  prefaces  an  edition  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works  with  a  Hfe  of  the  Stratford  actor;  a  portion  is  here 
given :  — 

He  was  the  Son  of  Mr.  John  Shakespear,  and  was  born  at  Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon, in  Warwickshire,  in  April,  1564.  His  father 
who  was  a  considerable  dealer  in  wool,  had  so  large  a  family, 
ten  children  in  all,^  that  tho'  he  was  the  eldest  son,  he  could  give 
him  no  better  education  than  his  own  employment.  He  had  bred 
him,  't  is  true,  for  some  time  at  a  free-school,  where  't  is  prob- 
able he  acquir'd  that  little  Latin  he  was  master  of:  But  the  nar- 
rowness of  his  circumstances,  and  the  want  of  his  assistance  at 
home,  forc'd  his  father  to  withdraw  him  from  thence,  and  un- 
happily prevented  his  further  proficiency  in  that  language. 

Let  us  consider  the  character  of  this  school.  Fortunately, 
so  many  have  raked  the  field  to  discover  relics,  however 
minute,  of  the  Stratford  actor's  life,  that  we  have  a  pretty  ac- 
curate knowledge  of  what  it  must  have  been.  The  few  books 
which  it  possessed,  according  to  Phillipps,  were,  "Lilly's 
Grammar  and  a  few  classical  books,"  chained  to  the  desks, 
and,  like  other  English  schools  outside  of  college  towns,  it 
could  give  only  the  poorest  sort  of  an  education.  Roger 
Ascham,  who  described  such  schools  in  1571,  says  that  the 
teaching  in  them  was  "mere  babblement  and  motions." 
Phillipps  says,  however,  that  Shakspere  "somehow  or  other 
was  taught  to  read  and  write,  the  necessary  preliminaries  to 
admission  into  the  free  school";  but  he  continues:  "There 
were  few  persons  at  that  time  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  capable 
of  initiating  him  even  into  these  preparatory  accomplish- 
ments ;  as  likely  as  not,  the  poet  received  the  first  rudiments 
of  an  education  from  older  boys,  who  were  someway  ad- 
vanced in  their  school  career."  ^  Churton  Collins  attempts 
by  giving  us  a  glimpse  of  important  schools,  of  which  there 
were  a  few,  a  very  few,  in  England  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
to  make  it  appear  that  the  Stratford  school  was  like  these. 
This  is  wholly  misleading  as  all  the  best  authorities  prove. 

1  There  were  but  eight.  ^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  38. 

41 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  influence  of  a  school  estabUshed  for  a  generation  or  two 
would  naturally  be  reflected  by  the  community  about  it,  and 
judged  by  this  rule,  the  Stratford  school  was  such  as  Ascham 
described,  for  it  has  been  estimated  that  not  over  fifty  per- 
sons in  the  town  in  Shakspere's  time  could  read  or  write,  and 
when  it  became  necessary  for  the  aldermen  and  most  influ- 
ential burgesses  to  complete  an  important  public  document, 
but  six  out  of  nineteen  could  sign  their  names  to  it ;  the  other 
thirteen  aflSxed  to  it  their  rude  marks.  This  ceases  to  be  re- 
markable when  we  learn  from  Phillipps,  whose  authority  in 
everything  relating  to  Shaksperiana  is  acknowledged,  that 
he  places  the  number  of  books  in  the  town,  "exclusive  of 
Bibles,  church  services,  psalters,  and  educational  manuals,  at 
no  more  than  two  or  three  dozen,  if  so  many/'  ^  and  Richard 
Grant  White  thinks  this  estimate  excessive.  CoUins's  attempt 
to  break  the  force  of  the  testimony  of  his  abler  predecessors 
is  a  conspicuous  failure. 

The  actor  himself  did  not  own  a  single  book  when  he  died, 
if  we  may  accept  the  evidence  of  his  will  in  which  everything 
of  value  seems  to  have  been  mentioned.  As  books  were  rare, 
and  especially  valuable,  they  were  among  the  proudest  pos- 
sessions of  a  testator,  and  the  absence  of  reference  to  them  in 
an  itemized  will  sufficiently  indicates  that  he  did  not  own  any. 

To  continue  Rowe's  account :  — 

Upon  leaving  school  he  seems  to  have  given  intirely  into  that 
way  of  living  which  his  father  propos'd  to  him;  and  in  order  to 
settle  in  the  world  after  a  family  manner,  he  thought  fit  to  marry 
while  he  was  yet  very  young.  His  wife  was  the  daughter  of  one 
Hathaway,  said  to  have  been  a  substantial  yeoman  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Stratford.  In  this  kind  of  settlement  he  continued  for 
some  time,  'till  an  extravagance  that  he  was  guilty  of,  forc'd 
him  both  out  of  this  country  and  that  way  of  living  which  he  had 
taken  up :  —  He  had,  by  a  misfortune  common  enough  to  young 
fellows,  fallen  into  ill  company ;  and  amongst  them  some  that  made 
a  frequent  practice  of  deer-stealing,  engag'd  him  with  them  more 
than  once  in  robbing  a  park  that  belong'd  to  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of 
^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  55- 

42 


k 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

Charlecot  near  Stratford.  For  this  he  was  prosecuted  by  that 
gentleman,  as  he  thought  somewhat  too  severely;  and  in  order 
to  revenge  that  ill  usage  he  made  a  ballad  upon  him.  And  tho' 
this  probably  the  first  essay  of  his  poetry  be  lost,  yet  it  is  said  ^ 
to  have  been  so  very  bitter,  that  it  redoubled  the  prosecution 
against  him  to  that  degree,  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  his  busi- 
ness and  family  in  Warwickshire  for  some  time,  and  shelter  him- 
self in  London.  It  is  at  that  time  and  upon  this  accident  that  he 
is  said  to  have  made  his  first  acquaintance  in  the  playhouse.  He 
was  receiv'd  into  the  company  then  in  being,  at  first  in  a  very 
mean  rank;  but  his  admirable  wit,  and  the  natural  turn  of  it  to 
the  stage,  soon  distinguish'd  him,  if  not  as  an  extraordinary 
actor,  yet  as  an  excellent  writer.  His  name  is  printed,  as  the 
custom  was  in  those  times,  amongst  those  of  the  players,  before 
some  old  plays,  but  without  any  particular  account  of  what  sort 
of  parts  he  used  to  play;  and  though  I  have  enquired,  I  could 
never  meet  with  any  further  account  of  him  this  way,  than  that 
the  top  of  his  performance  was  the  Ghost  in  his  own  Hamlet.^  '^ 

This  testimony  to  Shakspere's  inferiority  in  histrionic 
ability  is  further  illustrated  by  Oldys,  who,  curious  as  others 
have  been  to  learn  something  of  the  ability  of  Shakspere  as  "< 
an  actor,  interviewed  his  aged  brother  to  learn  in  what  parts 
he  had  seen  him  perform.  Though  he  had  often  attended  the 
theater  to  which  his  prosperous  relative  belonged,  the  only 
part  the  old  man  remembered  to  have  seen  his  brother  im- 
personate was  that  of  "a  decrepit  old  man,"  who,  he  says, 
"wore  a  long  beard  and  appeared  so  weak  and  drooping  that 
he  was  forced  to  be  supported  and  carried  by  another  person 
to  a  table  at  which  he  was  seated  among  some  company  and 
one  of  them  sung  a  song."  Malone  says  of  this  story  that 
it  "came  originally  from  Mr.  Thomas  Jones,  of  Tarbeck, 
Worcestershire,  who  related  it,  not  from  one  of  Shakspere's 
brothers,  but  of  a  relative."  ^ 

1  "Nicholas  Rowe's  LijeT  in  Eighteenth  Century  Essays,  etc.,  by  D.  Nichol 
Smith,  M.A.,  pp.  1-23.  Glasgow,  1903.  Cf.  Some  Account  of  the  Life  of  William 
Shakespeare,  written  by  Mr.  Rowe  (Johnson  and  Steevens),  vol.  i,  pp.  57-132. 
London,  1803. 

2  Edmund  Malone,  The  Plays  and  Poems  of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  11, 
p.  286.   London,  1821.   Cf.  Diary  of  Rev.  John  Ward. 

43 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

These  statements  of  Rowe  and  Oldys  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate the  range  of  Shakspere's  histrionic  talents,  and  prob- 
ably account  for  such  remarks  as  that  of  the  Vicar  of  Stratford, 
that  his  townsman  was  possessed  of  "  a  natural  wit  without 
any  art  at  all." 

Apologists  have  endeavored  to  prove  that  the  deer-stealing 
episode  was  a  tradition  unworthy  of  credence,  or,  if  true,  was 
but  an  exuberance  of  youthful  spirits ;  yet  the  actor  was  a 
married  man  with  a  family,  and  cannot  be  excused,  as  Phil- 
lipps  and  others  have  done,  by  citing  similar  escapades  by 
college  students.  If  the  story  is  true,  the  labored  arguments 
to  prove  that  to  steal  or  kill  deer  on  a  private  estate  could  not 
be  legally  punished  are  too  weak  for  consideration. 

As  so  much  has  been  said  about  the  discovery  and  printing 
by  Capell  and  Oldys  of  the  scurrilous  verse  of  the  "Ballad," 
called  by  Rowe  "very  bitter,"  it  may  be  proper  to  give  it  a 
passing  glance,  though  it  may  not  be  genuine,  for  similar 
verses  subsequently  found  in  good  Dame  Tyler's  chest  of 
drawers  are  without  doubt  apocryphal.  This  wretched  dog- 
gerel, if  he  composed  it,  reflects  no  credit  upon  the  actor,  and 
it  seems  questionable  judgment  for  his  admirers  to  quote  it 
as  an  example  of  wit  and  ability  to  versify.  It  is  claimed  that 
the  "Venus  and  Adonis"  was  written  about  the  same  time. 

A  parliamente  member,  a  justice  of  peace, 

At  home  a  poor  scare  crow,  at  London  an  asse; 

If  lowsie  is  Lucy,  as  some  volke  miscalle  it, 

Then  Lucy  is  lowsie,  whatever  befalle  it; 

He  thinkes  himself  greate,  yet  an  asse  is  his  state, 

If  Lucy  is  lowsie,  as  some  volke  miscalle  it, 

Sing  lowsie  is  Lucy,  whatever  befalle  it.^ 

So  much  has  been  said  about  the  actor's  wit  that  we  may 
well  quote  Thomas  Fuller,  in  whose  "Worthies,"  published 
forty-six  years  after  the  actor's  death,  is  this :  — 

Many  were  the  wit-comhates  betwixt  him  and  Ben  Jonson, 
which  two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great  Gallion,  and  an  English 

^  Severn,  Diary  of  Rev.  John  Ward.  London,  1839. 

44 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

man-of-War,   Master  Jonson   (like  the  former)   was  built  far 
higher  in  Learning;  Solid  but  slow  of  performances.^ 

Fuller  long  held  a  high  seat  in  the  Stratford  biographical 
arena,  but  what  he  wrote  was  pure  imagination,  an  elabora- 
tion of  Castle's  familiar  prattle,  which  is  the  source  of  all  the 
traditionary  lore  relating  to  the  actor  that  we  have  quoted,  and 
which,  with  much  repetition,  can  hardly  have  suffered  loss  of 
pristine  color.  Fuller  never  saw  the  actor,  having  been  born 
after  he  left  London,  and  was  but  eight  years  old  when  he 
died.  Writers  have  enlarged,  however,  upon  this  scene,  as 
they  have  upon  the  tavern  scene  in  which  the  actor  is  said  to 
have  helped  his  friends,  Jonson  and  Combe,  construct  their 
epitaphs,  thereby  exalting  traditional  anecdotes  of  a  coarse 
and  commonplace  nature  into  illustrations  of  that  wit  which 
irradiates  the  immortal  dramas;  such  attempts  can  but  indi- 
cate a  faulty  literary  perspective. 

Before  leaving  these  local  traditions  behind,  it  seems  neces- 
sary to  mention  Shakspere's  crab  tree,  which  was  formerly 
pointed  out  to  Stratford  pilgrims,  who  were  told  that  in  the 
actor's  time  there  was  a  rivalry  between  his  native  town  and 
the  adjoining  one  of  Bidford,  in  both  of  which  were  a  number 
of  loose  livers,  some  of  whom,  known  as  the  Bidford  topers, 
challenged  those  of  Stratford  to  a  drinking-match  to  deter- 
mine which  excelled  in  bibacious  ability.  Bidford  won,  and 
Shakspere,  who  was  one  of  the  Stratford  topers,  being  unable 
to  get  farther  on  his  way  home  than  the  famous  crab  tree, 
spent  the  night  under  its  sheltering  branches  to  sleep  off  the 
effect  of  his  debauch. 

Victor  Hugo,  in  an  essay  on  the  actor,  thus  comments  upon 
this  episode,  "Shakespeare,  the  drunken  savage!  savage, yes, 
but  the  inhabitant  of  the  virgin  forest,  drunken,  indeed,  but 

1  Thomas  Fuller,  D.D.,  The  History  of  the  Worthies  of  England,  p.  126. 
London,  1662.  Editors  of  the  Worthies  have  taken  unwarranted  liberties  with 
the  text.  The  above  is  from  the  original  edition.  It  has  been  made  to  appear 
that  Fuller  said  that  he  had  beheld  these  wit-combats. 

45 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

with  the  ideal."  Even  today  a  school  of  critics  are  asserting 
with  Hugo,  against  the  experience  of  mankind,  that  debauch- 
ery and  genius  are  not  incompatible  yoke-fellows. 

A  few  words  about  Shakspere's  marriage.  Under  date  of 
November  27,  1582,  appears  a  license  of  marriage  between 
"William  Shaxpere  and  Anne  Wateley,  of  Temple  Grafton," 
and  on  the  next  day,  November  28,  a  similar  license  to  "Wil- 
liam Shagspere  and  Anne  Hathway,  of  Stratford-on-Avon."  ^ 
Ithasbeen  contended  that  the  butcher's  apprentice  had  taken 
out  a  license  to  marry  Anne  Whateley,  and  the  fact  being 
found  out  by  the  friends  of  Anne  Hathaway,  they  forced  him 
to  take  out  another  license  to  marry  her.  There  are  difficul- 
ties surrounding  this  mysterious  affair  which  have  never  been, 
and  probably  never  can  be,  cleared  up.  It  has  been  contended 
that  there  were  two  William  Shaksperes,  for  there  were  sev- 
eral in  Warwickshire,  and  two  marriages,  but  this  theory  is 
not  borne  out  by  the  registers.  The  most  plausible  theory  is, 
perhaps,  that  in  the  first  instance  an  error  was  made  in  the 
name  of  "Wateley"  and  that  "Hathway"  was  intended;  yet 
the  fact  that  here  we  are  faced  by  the  place  of  residence  of 
"Wateley,"  namely,  "Temple  Grafton,"  ought  to  dispose  of 
this  theory.  But  to  exonerate  the  actor  it  is  unnecessary  to 
impose  upon  our  credulity  the  impossible  coincidence  that 
there  were  two  persons  of  the  same  name,  at  practically  the 
same  time,  seeking  marriage  under  the  authority  of  the  same 
bishop,  for  the  bond  entered  into  by  the  friends  of  Anne 
Hathaway  specifies  that  it  is  given  to  indemnify  the  bishop 
for  liability  "by  reason  of  any  precontract,"  evidently  refer- 
ring to  the  Whateley  episode.  Even  were  this  an  error,  which 
it  is  difficult  to  believe,  however  expert  apologists  may  be  in 
fashioning  explanations,  the  marriage  was  a  most  irregular 
affair,  and  exhibits  the  future  actor  in  a  light  far  from  agree- 
able. To  conform  to  law  he  should  have  had  the  consent  of 
his  parents,  especially  as  he  was  a  minor,  but  such  consent  is 

^  Joseph  William  Gray,  Shakespeare^ s  Marriage.  London,  1905. 

46 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

wanting.  Archbishop  Whitgift,  then  Bishop  of  Worcester,  in 
whose  register  the  marriage  hcense  of  Shakspere  and  Anne 
Hathaway  appears,  was  a  stickler  for  regularity  in  marriages, 
and  two  years  before  had  favored  the  following  clause  in  the 
Lower  House  of  Convocation:  — 

That  there  be  no  dispensation  granted  for  marriage  without 
bans,  but  under  sufficient  and  large  bonds.  .  .  .  And,  thirdly, 
that  they  proceed  not  to  the  solemnization  of  the  marriage  with- 
out the  consent  of  parents  and  governors. 

This  clause  did  not  then  obtain  the  approval  of  Elizabeth, 
but,  on  the  Archbishop's  translation  to  Canterbury  in  1583, 
he  procured  the  Queen's  sanction  to  it,  which  removed  all 
question  respecting  its  importance.  The  marriage  bond  bore 
the  name  of  John  Richardson  and  Fulk  Sandells,  friends  of 
the  bride.  It  seems  strange  that  the  name  of  neither  John 
Shakspere,  nor  any  of  the  friends  of  his  son  were  placed  upon 
the  bond.  Either  he  had  no  responsible  friends,  or,  if  he  had, 
they  declined  the  risk  of  backing  him ;  for  any  young  man  with 
a  modicum  of  self-respect  would  have  taken  pride  in  securing 
responsible  bondsmen  among  his  relatives  or  friends.  It  has 
been  argued  that  his  father  did  not  sign  his  bond  because  he 
had  secreted  property  and  feared  inquiry,  and  also  that  he 
did  not  want  to  take  the  risk  of  a  suit  for  damages  which 
might  have  been  brought  against  him  for  his  son's  breach  of 
the  law  of  apprenticeship,  and  even  that  he  might  have  given 
verbal  consent  to  the  marriage;  but  these  are  mere  conjec- 
tures. It  was  usual,  though  there  were  sometimes  careless 
omissions,  to  put  in  the  license  the  occupation  of  the  groom, 
but  this  does  not  appear  in  this  case ;  in  fact,  everything  shows 
haste  and  an  inexcusable  disregard  of  proprieties.  We  can 
afford  to  ignore  the  "troth  plight"  fiction,  since  even  Lee  has 
curtly  dismissed  it. 

This  marriage  could  hardly  be  a  happy  one.  Left  by  her 
husband  for  many  years  after  her  marriage,  Anne  Hathaway 
must  have  passed  a  none  too  happy  life.   Writers  have  bit- 

47 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

terly  criticized  him  for  his  treatment  of  her,  and  quoted  from 
the  plays  in  support  of  their  contention,  while  others  have  un- 
reasonably blamed  her  for  the  necessity  of  the  marriage,  on 
the  ground  that  being  older  she  was  more  experienced.  Her 
tombstone  indicates  that  she  died  "The  6th  day  of  August, 
1623,  being  of  the  age  of  67  yeares."  This  would  make  her  the 
elder  by  nearly  eight  years. 

That  he  ignored  her  in  his  will,  and  repudiated  a  small  debt 
of  forty  shillings  which  she  had  borrowed  of  a  poor  "  Sheep- 
herd"  of  her  father,  indicates  his  feelings  with  regard  to  her. 
Says  Lee :  —    ^ 

There  is  a  likelihood  that  the  poet's  wife  fared  in  the  poet's 
absence  no  better  than  his  father.  The  only  contemporary  men- 
tion of  her  between  her  marriage  in  1582,  and  her  husband's 
death  in  1616,  is  as  the  borrower,  at  an  unascertained  date  (evi- 
dently before  1595),  of  forty  shillings  from  Thomas  Whittington, 
who  had  formerly  been  her  father's  shepherd.  The  money  was 
unpaid  when  Whittington  died  in  1601,  and  he  directed  his  exe- 
cutor to  recover  the  sum  from  the  poet  and  distribute  it  among 
the  poor  of  Stratford.^ 

What  a  refinement  of  irony  was  the  bequest  by  the  humble 
benefactor  of  this  "poet's"  neglected  wife  to  the  paupers  of 
his  native  town,  and  what  a  quick  response  it  must  have 
aroused  in  that  little  community. 

Phillipps  explains  the  episode  of  the  second-best  bed  by 
declaring  that  she  was  entitled  to  dower  in  his  estate,  but 
Lee  explodes  this  explanation  as  follows :  — 

The  name  of  Shakespeare's  wife  was  omitted  from  the  original 
draft  of  the  will,  but,  by  an  interlineation  in  the  final  draft,  she 
received  his  second-best  bed  with  its  furniture.  No  other  be- 
quest was  made  her.  Several  wills  of  the  period  have  been  dis- 
covered in  which  a  bedstead  or  other  article  of  furniture  formed 
part  of  a  wife's  inheritance,  but  none,  except  Shakespeare's,  is 
forthcoming  in  which  a  bed  forms  the  sole  bequest.  At  the  same 
time,  the  precision  with  which  Shakespeare's  will  accounts  for 

*  Sidney  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  187. 

•  48 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

and  assigns  to  other  legatees  every  known  item  of  his  property, 
refutes  the  conjecture  that  he  had  set  aside  any  portion  of  it 
under  a  previous  settlement  of  jointure  with  a  view  of  making 
independent  provision  for  his  wife.^ 

In  his  preface  to  the  "Diary  of  Rev.  John  Ward/'  the 
editor,  Severn,  gives  a  fictitious  account  of  the  death  of  the 
actor  which  doubtless  has  misled  many  readers.  He  says  that 
being  ill  and  apprehending  his  end,  he  was  visited  in  January 
by  Jonson  and  Drayton ;  and  cheered  by  their  presence  he  left 
his  bed  and  joined  his  convivial  friends,  "his  pale  face  flushed, 
his  eyes  flashed  with  the  rays  of  genius,  the  terrors  of  death 
are  past  away,  the  festive  banquet  is  spread,  he  is  the  life  of 
the  party,  etc.,  etc."  He  drinks  too  much  and  the  result  is 
stated,  —  "Wine  aided  the  ravages  of  this  cruel  fever  —  low  ^^ 
typhoid."  Though  it  is  the  immediate  cause  of  death,  "it 
brings  no  opprobrium  on  his  venerated  memory."  He  thus 
explains  the  bequest  of  the  second-best  bed  to  his  wife:  "The 
first  was  reserved  for  the  use  of  Jonson,  Southampton,  and 
the  aristocratic  Drayton."  ^  Says  Lee,  "  Local  tradition  subse- 
quently credited  her  with  a  wish  to  be  buried  in  his  grave ;  and 
her  epitaph  proves  that  she  inspired  her  daughters  with  genu- 
ine affection."  ^ 

White  is  quite  as  emphatic.  In  alluding  to  the  disagreeable 
facts  in  the  actor's  life,  he  naively  informs  us  why  his  bio- 
graphers have  acknowledged  them,  and  graphically  states  the 
case  in  this  wise:  "The  biographer  of  Shakespeare  must  re-    "^^ 
cord  these  facts,  because  the  literary  antiquaries  have  un-        ; 
earthed,  produced  and  pitilessly  printed  them  as  new  partic- 
ulars in  the  life  of  Shakespeare.  We  hunger,  and  we  receive      ) 
these  husks;  we  open  our  mouths  for  food,  and  we  break  our 
teeth  against  these  stones."  * 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  272. 
2  Severn,  Diary,  etc.,  pp.  57,  59-69. 

^  h^Q,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  ^.27$.  'London,  i?>()^.  ^ 

4  Richard  Grant  White,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  cxxxviii.       ^ 
Boston,  1865. 

49 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

IN    LONDON 

We  would  like  to  know  the  exact  date  of  the  future  actor's 
flight  from  Stratford.  Phillipps  assumes  it  to  have  been  in 
1586-87,  soon  after  the  birth  of  the  twins,  and  we  will  adopt 
it  as  an  approximate  date,  and  follow  him  to  London,  noting 
that  Phillipps  depicts  him  as  "trudging  thither  on  foot  by 
way  of  Oxford  and  High  Wycombe."  His  life  thus  far  had 
been  discreditable.  Penniless  and  uneducated,  the  outlook 
would  have  been  discouraging  to  one,  the  horizon  of  whose 
life  had  not  been  bounded  by  the  most  sordid  experience ;  but, 
knowing  what  we  do  of  him  at  this  time,  we  need  not  doubt 
that  he  turned  his  face  toward  the  great  city  careless  of  future 
possibilities.  There  is  a  tradition  that  he  found  employment 
at  the  stables  of  the  elder  Burbage.  Phillipps  connects  this 
employment  with  the  later  horse-holding  episode  thus  related 
by  Gibber :  — 

When  he  came  to  London,  he  was  without  money  and  friends, 
and,  being  a  stranger,  he  knew  not  to  whom  to  apply,  nor  by  what 
means  to  support  himself.  At  that  time,  coaches  not  being  in 
use,  and  as  gentlemen  were  accustomed  to  ride  to  the  play- 
house, Shakspear,  driven  to  the  last  necessity,  went  to  the  play- 
house door,  and  pick'd  up  a  little  money  by  taking  care  of  the 
gentlemen's  horses  who  came  to  the  door. 

And  Malone,  referring  to  him  at  a  later  period  in  his  ex- 
periences :  — 

There  is  a  stage  tradition  that  his  first  office  lathe  theatre  was 
that  of  Callboy,  or  prompter's  attendant;  whose  employment  It 
is  to  give  the  performers  notice  to  be  ready  to  enter,  as  often  as 
the  business  of  the  play  requires  their  appearance  on  the  stage. 

It  was  not  until  five  years  after  reaching  London  that  we 
hear  of  him.  On  the  3d  of  March,  1592,  according  to  Phil- 
lipps, the  first  part  of  the  drama  of  "Henry  VI "  was  brought 
out  by  Lord  Strange's  servants,  then  acting  either  at  Newing- 
ton  or  Southwark  under  an  arrangement  with  Henslowe,  a 

SO 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

wealthy  stage  manager,  to  whom  no  doubt  the  play  was  sold 
by  its  author.  The  actor's  name  was  not  associated  with  this 
play,  nor  was  it  printed  until  it  appeared  in  the  Folio  of  1623. 
His  biographers,  however,  assume  the  year  1592  as  the  begin- 
ning of  his  recognition  as  an  author,  and  conveniently  adopt 
the  theory  that  previous  to  this  date  he  had  been  acquiring 
a  literary  education.  Among  these.  White,  who,  fully  realizing 
that  there  is  no  royal  road  to  knowledge,  and  the  necessity 
of  providing  time  for  education,  adopts  the  assumption,  and 
declares  that  during  this  period,  "When  he  was  eating  the 
bread  of  poverty,  he  must  have  found  time  to  obtain  some 
knowledge  of  books  (of  which  except  Bibles  and  the  school- 
house  grammar,  there  were  not  a  dozen  in  all  Stratford,  and 
of  which  he  could  have  learned  nothing  from  his  mother,  for 
she,  like  his  father,  could  not  write  her  own  name),  and  then 
to  show  effectively  his  powers  as  a  writer." 

It  really  seems  too  much  to  ask  us  to  believe  that  a  man   A 
past  his  majority,  bred  to  the  rudest  of  trades,  and  absolutely      ^ 
ignorant  of  books,  who  was  according  to  tradition  a  frequenter 
of  taverns,  and  a  participator  in  drinking-bouts,  —  far  too 
much,  indeed,  to  ask  us  to  conceive  that  such  a  man,  thrown 
upon  his  own  resources  in  a  city  like  sixteenth-century  Lon- 
don, where  he  had  to  struggle  for  bread  or  die  of  starvation, 
would  apply  himself  to  the  study  of  literature,  law,  medicine, 
science,  philosophy,  languages,  even  if  he  had  the  inclination 
and  the  time  to  do  so,  which  this  man  could  not  have  pos- 
sessed, for  it  cannot  be  refuted  that  during  these  five  years     j 
he  was  not  only  winning  a  living,  but  a  foothold  in  the  play-    / 
house,  and  cultivating  that  hard  business  sense  which  stood 
him  in  good  stead  through  life. 

Anders,  the  noted  German  critic,  introduces  his  work  on 
the  erudition  of  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare''  Works  in 
these  words :  — 

The  immense  literature  which  centers  around  the  name  of 
Shakespeare  renders  a  work  of  the  present  nature  rather  trying. 

SI 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

It  means  tough  fighting  to  grapple  with  this  sea  of  books  which 
threatens  to  drown  all  independence  of  thought,  for  it  has  been 
my  constant  aim  not  to  accept  a  statement  without  convincing 
myself  of  its  truth.  ^ 

Among  the  early  playhouses  the  Blackfriars  possessed  an 
enviable  popularity,  having  on  its  roll  of  actors  some  of  the 
best  in  England,  as  James  and  Richard  Burbage,  John  Lane- 
ham,  Thomas  Green,  George  Peele,  Anthony  Wadeson,  and 
other  public  favorites ;  several  of  these  were  writers  and  play- 
wrights. Shakspere  appears  as  twelfth  on  this  roll,  which  is 
indicative  of  his  histrionic  status  in  the  company.  To  ac- 
count for  this,  age  has  been  assumed  to  determine  rank  on 
the  stage,  but  this  is  easily  disproved  by  a  comparison  of  the 
ages  of  his  associates. 

Phillipps,  Lee,  and  others  speak  continually  of  "Shake- 
speare's Company,"  or  "The  Poet's  Company,"  by  which  they 
intend  to  convey  the  idea  that  he  was  its  manager.  This  is 
quite  unwarranted.  The  Burbages  owned  the  Globe  and 
Blackfriars'  theaters,  and  the  only  allusion  to  the  Stratford 
actor's  theatrical  interest  is  found  in  a  petition  of  the  Bur- 
bages to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  in  the  Public  Records  Office, 
dated  August  i,  1635.  In  this  petition  they  state  that  their 
father  was  "the  first  builder  of  playhowses";  that  "he  built 
upon  leased  ground  by  which  meanes  the  landlord  and  he  had 
a  great  suite  in  law ;  —  and  by  his  death  the  like  troubles  fell 
on  us  —  his  sonnes ;  wee  then  bethought  us  of  altering  from 
this,  and  at  like  expence  built  the  Globe ;  and  to  ourselves  we 
joyned  those  deserveing  men,  Shakspere,  Hemings,  Condall, 
Philips  and  others.  Now  for  the  Blackfriars  —  our  father 
purchased  it  for  extreame  rates,  and  made  it  into  a  play- 
house —  which  after  was  leased  to  one  Evans,  that  first  set 
up  boyes  commonly  called  the  Queenes  Majesties  Children  of 
the  Chappell."   They  growing  up,  "It  was  considered  that 

^  H.  R.  D.  Anders,  A  Dissertation  on  Shakespeare^s  Reading  and  the  Im- 
mediate Sources  of  his  Works.   Bedin,  1904. 

52 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

house  would  bee  as  fitt  for  ourselves,  and  so  purchased  the 
lease  remaining  from  Evans  —  and  placed  men  players,  which 
were  Hemings,  Condall,  Shakspeare,  &c."  ^  This  was  in  1609, 
long  after  the  actor  returned  to  Stratford.  Even  Lee  says  that 
the  actor's  "interest  in  the  Blackfriars  was  unimportant," 
and  that  the  Globe  "was  not  occupied  by  Shakespeare's  com- 
pany until  December,  1609,  or  January,  1610,  when  his  acting 
days  were  nearing  their  end."  Why  not  say  "  Burbage's  Com- 
pany," which  it  was  ?  It  was  never  "  Shakespeare's  Company  " 
any  more  than  Heminge's  or  Kemp's  or  Condell's,  or  of  any 
one  of  a  dozen  others,  who  shared  in  the  net  receipts  of  the 
house  for  a  limited  period,  a  convenient  and  safe  way  of  re- 
munerating them.  Yet  from  materials  too  flimsy  to  bear  the 
breath  of  criticism,  Lee  constructs  a  plethoric  balance  sheet 
to  show  the  income  of  his  protege  from  the  theater  and  other 
sources, and  ends  by  informing  us  that  "it  is  probable"  that 
he  disposed  of  his  share  in  161 1,  the  year  after  "his  company" 
occupied  the  theater.  What  a  waste  of  effort  to  bolster  up  a 
baseless  theory!  It  might  have  been  as  well  to  have  consulted 
Ratsey,  who  dubbed  the  actor  "  Sir  Simon  Two  Shares  and  a 
Halfe,"  which  seems  suggestive.^  Perhaps  it  should  be  added 
that  the  records,  showing  the  financial  profits  of  the  Black- 
friars' and  Globe  theaters,  yield  no  evidence  of  the  Stratford 
actor's  authorship  of  the  plays.  The  nature  of  the  actor's 
transactions  has  always  been  a  subject  of  surprise  to  students, 
and  none  of  his  biographers,  however  much  disposed  to  cover 
up  his  deficiencies,  has  been  insensible  to  it.  Mr.  Appleton 
Morgan  expresses  this  feeling  mildly  when  he  says,  "At  any 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines^  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  317.  Lee,  J  Life  of  Shakespeare^  pp.  38, 
264. 

2  In  a  list,  long  ago  dismissed  by  his  biographers  as  spurious,  his  name  ap- 
pears as  a  holder  of  four  shares  in  the  Globe.  Some  of  his  devotees  are  now 
trying  to  show  that  it  is  genuine,  as  though  this  were  a  matter  of  consequence. 
Heretofore  it  was  the  Blackfriars  in  which  he  had  a  pecuniary  interest;  but 
even  Lee  has  abandoned  this,  and  says  (J  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  196.),  "It  was 
not  until  1 599,  when  the  Globe  Theater  was  built,  that  he  acquired  any  share 
in  the  profits  of  a  playhouse." 

S3 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

rate  we  do  know  that  the  great  WiUiam  Hved  apart  from  his 
wife,  and  that  such  visits  as  he  paid  to  Stratford  may  almost 
always  be  found  indicated  by  an  investment,  a  law  suit,  or  an 
arbitration,  whereby  the  thrifty  poet  did  largely  increase  the 
body  of  wealth  he  left  his  children."  ^ 

A  brilliant  American  author,  whose  genius  could  never 
brook  the  sober  pace  of  a  Rosinante,  gives  rein  to  his  wit  in 
this  wise :  — 

Then,  1610-11,  he  returned  to  Stratford  and  settled  down  for 
good  and  all,  and  busied  himself  in  lending  money,  trading  in 
tithes,  trading  in  land  and  houses;  shirking  a  debt  of  forty-one 
shillings,  borrowed  by  his  wife  during  his  long  desertion  of  his 
family;  suing  debtors  for  shillings  and  coppers;  being  sued  him- 
self for  shillings  and  coppers;  and  acting  as  confederate  to  a 
neighbor  who  tried  to  rob  the  town  of  Its  rights  In  a  certain  com- 
mon, and  did  not  succeed.  He  lived  five  or  six  years  till  1616  In 
the  joy  of  these  elevated  pursuits.  Then  he  made  a  will.  It 
names  in  minute  detail  every  Item  of  property  he  owned  In  the 
world,  —  houses,  lands,  sword,  silver  gilt  bowl,  and  so  on,  — 
all  the  way  down  to  his  second-best  bed  and  Its  furniture.  It 
was  eminently  and  conspicuously  a  business  man's  will,  not  a 
poet's.^ 

Richard  Grant  White  thus  alludes  to  this  subject:  — 

The  pursuit  of  an  Impoverished  man  for  the  sake  of  impris- 
oning him  and  depriving  him  both  of  the  power  of  paying  his 
debts  and  supporting  himself  and  his  family.  Is  an  incident  in 
Shakespeare's  life  which  it  requires  the  utmost  allowance  and 
consideration  for  the  practice  of  the  time  and  country  to  enable 
us  to  contemplate  with  equanimity  —  satisfaction  is  impossi- 
ble.3 

Of  several  episodes  in  his  London  life  it  was  not  intended  to 
speak,  but  since  his  recent  biographer,  Sidney  Lee,  has  done 
so,  it  seems  necessary  to  quote  him  verbatim.  The  first  is  this : — 

^  Appleton  Morgan,  A.M.,  LL.B.,  Shakespeare  in  Fact  and  in  Criticism^ 
p.  277.  New  York,  1888. 

2  Mark  Twain,  Is  Shakespeare  Dead?  New  York  and  London,  1909. 
^  Richard  Grant  White,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  Ixxxviii. 

54 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

Burbage,  when  playing  Richard  III,  made  an  assignation 
with  a  lady  in  the  audience  to  visit  her  after  the  performances; 
Shakespeare,  overhearing  the  conversation,  anticipated  Burbage, 
and  met  him  on  his  arrival  with  the  quip  that  "William  the 
Conqueror  was  before  Richard  the  Third."  ^ .  .  . 

Another  story  in  the  same  key,  credits  Shakespeare  with  the 
paternity  of  Sir  William  D'Avenant.^  He  was  baptized  at  Ox- 
ford on  March  3,  1605,  ^s  the  son  of  John  Davenant,  the  land- 
lord of  the  Crown  Inn,  where  Shakespeare  lodged  on  his  journies 
to  and  from  Stratford.  The  story  of  Shakespeare's  paternal  re- 
lation to  the  boy  was  long  current  in  Oxford,  and  was  at  times 
complacently  accepted  by  the  reputed  son.  It  is  safer  to  accept 
the  less  compromising  version  which  makes  Shakespeare  the  god- 
father of  the  boy  William,  instead  of  his  father.  But  the  anti- 
quity and  persistence  of  the  scandal  belie  the  assumption  that 
Shakespeare  was  known  to  his  contemporaries  as  a  man  of 
scrupulous  virtue.^ 

Yet  another  story,  by  Lee,  represents  him  as  transferring 
one  of  his  mistresses  to  Southampton.  We  will,  however,  only 
quote  Lee's  reflection  on  the  transaction:  "Southampton's 
sportive  and  lascivious  temperament  might  easily  impel  him 
to  divert  to  himself  the  attentions  of  an  attractive  woman  by 
whom  he  saw  that  his  poet  was  fascinated,  and  he  was  unlikely 
to  tolerate  any  outspoken  protest  on  the  part  of  his  protege  " : 
an  admission  which  shows  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  rela- 
tions existing  in  Tudor  times  between  dissolute  aristocrats 
and  plebeians.^ 

Somewhat  recently  two  discoveries  relating  to  the  actor 
have  been  claimed  by  Stratfordians,  and  adopted  by  his  dis- 
ciples. The  first,  based  upon  a  statement  by  Sir  John  Harring- 
ton, is  to  the  effect  that  up  to  1599  he  carried  on  an  extensive 
gambling  business.  The  other  story  relates  to  one  of  the  maids 
of  honor  of  Elizabeth,  who,  banished  from  court  on  account 
of  her  shameful  life,  became  the  mistress  of  the  actor  and 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare^  p.  265. 

2  Young  Davenant  became  an  actor;  was  knighted  by  Charles  II,  and  changed 
the  form  of  his  name. 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  266.  *  Ibid.,  p.  154. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

dominated  his  life.  We  are  obliged  to  refer  to  these  unsavory- 
matters  because  they  are  the  subjects  of  orthodox  writers, 
and  cannot  properly  be  ignored  in  a  work  of  this  kind.  We 
shall  have  further  occasion  to  consider  them. 

Phillipps  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact  that  "in  the  early 
part  of  the  year  1598"  the  actor  was  in  London;  but  he  says, 
"It  is  certain,  however,  that  his  thoughts  were  not  at  this 
time  absorbed  by  literature  or  the  stage.  So  far  from  this 
being  the  case  there  are  good  reasons  for  concluding  that  they 
were  largely  occupied  with  matters  relating  to  pecuniary 
affairs,  and  to  the  progress  of  his  influence  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon."  1 

This  is  a  startling  admission  by  the  best  of  Shaksperian 
students.  Only  a  few  months  before,  the  first  and  second 
parts  of  "Henry  IV"  had  been  produced,  and  that  very  year 
appeared  "Love's  Labours  Lost,"  the  first  play  bearing  the 
name,  "W.  Shakespere.  As  it  was  presented  before  her 
Highnes  this  last  Christmas."  This  was  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  "The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  which  is  said  to 
have  been  written  in  the  brief  space  of  a  fortnight.  If  he  were 
not  "absorbed  by  literature  or  the  stage,"  at  this  time,  when 
these  plays  were  in  the  first  flush  of  success,  when  could  he 
have  been  ?  Phillipps  is  right,  however ;  he  was  no  more  ab- 
sorbed in  literature,  or  even  the  stage,  as  he  only  took  insig- 
nificant parts,  than  he  was  during  the  remainder  of  his  life  at 
Stratford,  where  he  was  engaged  in  petty  trade  until  his  death, 
making  occasional  visits  to  London  in  the  way  of  business  or 
pleasure. 

HIS   FAVORITE    ROLE 

When  he  turned  his  back  upon  London  he  seemed  to  forget 
the  literary  works  which  were  ascribed  to  him ;  in  fact,  never 
after  displayed  any  personal  interest  in  them,  but  gave  his 
attention  to  trading  and  loaning  money.  Some  of  his  transac- 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines^  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  i6i. 

S6 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

tions  have  left  traces  in  the  records  of  the  day,  and,  though 
proHx,  are  here  produced, as  an  exhibit.  These  do  not  include 
legitimate  real  estate  transactions,  and,  as  but  a  small  part  of 
a  man's  business  affairs  except  these  get  into  public  records, 
it  would  seem  that  his  were  extensive. 

Extract  from  a  letter  of  Abraham  Sturley  to  his  brother-in-lazv, 
Richard  Quiney,  24,  January  I^gy-g8 

This  is  one  speciall  remembrance  from  ur  father's  motion. 
Itt  semeth  bi  him  that  our  countrlman,  Mr.  Shaksper,  is  willinge 
to  disburse  some  monei  upon  some  od  yarde  land  or  other  att 
Shotterie  or  neare  about  us,  he  thinketh  itt  a  veri  fitt  patterne 
to  move  him  to  deal  in  the  matter  of  our  tithes  Bi  the  instruc- 
cions  u  can  geve  him  theareof,  and  by  the  frendes  he  can  make 
therefor  we  thinke  it  a  faire  marke  for  him  to  shoote  att  and  not 
impossible  to  hitt.  It  obtained  would  advance  him  indeede  and 
would  do  us  muche  good.^  .  .  . 

The  noate  of  corne  and  make  taken  the  iiij,th  of  Febrwarij, 
1597.   Wm.  Shackespere  X  quarters. 

A  Letter  from  Adrian  Quiney^  i^gS 

To  my  lovynge  sonne  Rycharde  Qwyney  at  the  Belle  In  Carter 
Leyne  deliver  these  in  London. 

Iff  you  bargen  with  Wm.  Sha  ...  or  receve  therfor  brynge 
youre  money  homme  that  you  maye  and  see  howe  knite  stock- 
ynges  be  sold  ther  is  gret  bylnge  of  them  at  Aysshome. 
1600.  William  Shakspere  vs.  John  Clayton,  London,  In  an  action 
to  recover  £7.  Judgment  rendered  for  plaintiff. 

1604.  William  Shakspere  vs.  Phillip  Rogers,  Stratford.  Action 
to  recover  an  account  for  malt,  including  a  loan  of  money, 
the  whole  amounting  to  £1,  i^s.  lod.  [The  same  man  had 
been  sued  by  him  four  years  before  for  two  shillings.] 

1605.  July  24,  Mr.  William  Shakspere  bought  for  440  pounds, 
the  moytie  or  one-half  of  —  the  tythes  of  corne,  grayne, 
blade  and  heye  —  in  the  towns  of  Olde  Stratforde,  Wel- 
combe  and  BIshopton. 

1608.  William  Shakspere  vs.  John  Addenbrooke  of  Stratford 
and  John  Horneby  surety,  action  for  debt  amounting  to 
£6.   [The  precepts  In  these  cases  were  made  by  his  cousin, 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  11,  p.  57. 

57 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Thomas  Green,  who  seems  to  have  been  living  with  him 
at  New  Place.] 


Says  Phillipps :  — 

In  the  autumn  of  1614,  there  was  great  excitement  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon  respecting  an  attempted  enclosure  of  a  large  portion  of 
the  neighboring  common  fields.  The  design  was  resisted  by  the 
Corporation. 

But  Combe,  he  says,  — 

spared  no  exertions  to  accomplish  the  object,  and,  in  many  in- 
stances, tormented  the  poor  and  coaxed  the  rich  into  an  acquies- 
cence with  his  views.  It  appears  most  probable  that  Shakespeare 
was  one  of  the  latter,  and  that  amongst  perhaps  other  induce- 
ments he  was  allured  to  the  unpopular  side  by  Combe's  agent, 
one  Replingham,  guaranteeing  him  from  prospective  loss.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  poet  was  in  favor  of  the 
enclosures,  for  on  December  the  23  rd,  the  Corporation  addressed 
a  letter  of  remonstrance  to  him  on  the  subject,  and  another  on 
the  same  day  to  Mr.  Mainwaring.  The  latter  who  had  been  prac- 
tically bribed  by  some  land  arrangements  at  Welcombe  undertook 
to  protect  the  interests  of  Shakespeare,  so  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  three  parties  were  acting  in  unison.^ 

The  only  letter  known  to  have  been  written  to  William  Shakspere 

Loveinge  contreyman  I  am  bolde  of  yow  as  of  a  frende  crave- 
inge  yowr  helpe  with  xxx.ll,vppon  Mr.  Bushells  and  my  securytee, 
or  Mr.  Myttons  with  me.  Mr.  Rosswell  is  nott  come  to  London 
as  yeate  and  I  have  especiall  cawse.  Yow  shall  ffrende  me  muche 
in  helpeing  me  out  of  all  the  debettes  I  owe  in  London.  I  thancke 
God  and  muche  quiet  my  mynde,  which  wolde  nott  be  indebeted. 
I  am  nowe  towardes  the  Cowrte,  in  hope  of  answer  for  the  dis- 
patche  of  my  buysenes.  Yow  shall  nether  loase  creddytt  now 
monney  by  me  the  Lorde  wyllinge;  and  nowe  butt  perswade 
yowrselfe  soe,  as  I  hope,  and  yow  shall  nott  need  to  feare  butt, 
with  all  hartie  thanckefullenes  I  wyll  holde  my  tyme,  and  con- 
tent yowr  ffrende  and  yf  we  bargaine  farther,  yow  shal  be  the 
paie-master  yowrselfe.  My  tyme  biddes  me  hastene  to  an  ende, 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  246. 

S8 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

and  soe  I  committ  thys  yowr  case  and  hope  of  yowr  helpe.  I 
feare  I  shall  nott  be  backe  thys  night  ffrom  the  Cowrte.  Haste. 
The  Lorde  be  with  yow  and  with  vs  all,  Amen!  ffrom  the  Bell 
in  Carter  Lane,  the  25  October,  1598. 

To  my  loveinge  good  ffrend  and  contreyman, 
Yowrs  in  all  kyndenes 

Rye  Quyney. 
Mr.  Wm.  Shackespere  deliver  thees.^ 

A  letter  from  Ahraham  Sturley  to  Richard  Quiney,  4,  November, 
I5g8,  relating  to  a  court  affair 

Our  countriman  Mr.  Wm.  Shakspare  would  procure  us  monei 
which  I  will  like  of  as  I  shall  heare  when  and  wheare  and  howe, 
and  I  prai  let  not  go  that  occasion  if  it  mai  sorte  to  ani  indifferent 
condicions. 

To  his  most  lovinge  brother  Mr.  Richard  Quinei  att  the  Bell 
in  Carterlane  att  London, 

geve  these.   Paid  2d. 

The  above  are  sufficient  to  show  something  of  the  variety 
and  extent  of  the  actor's  business  operations.  While  carrying 
on  these  -affairs,  he  appears  to  have  been  living  in  Stratford 
when  Quyney,  who  was  in  London,  addressed  him.  Sturley's 
letter,  ten  days  later,  indicates  that  he  had  seen  the  actor  in 
the  mean  time  and  received  encouragement  of  financial  aid 
for  Quyney,  who  was  anxiously  awaiting  a  response  to  his 
appeal,  before  returning  home.  He  had  purchased  New 
Place  in  his  native  town  for  a  permanent  residence  in  1597, 
and  appearances  indicate  that  he  soon  after  took  up  his  resi- 
dence there.  Writers  have  assumed  the  dates  of  1604  and  16 10 
simply  because  of  transactions  which  located  him  in  London 
or  Stratford  at  certain  dates. 

"There  is  evidence,"  says  Phillipps,  "in  the  list  of  corn  and 
malt  owners,  dated  a  few  months  after  Shakespeare's  pur- 
chase of  New  Place,  that  he  was  then  the  occupier  of  that 

^  This  letter  found  among  Quiney's  papers,  Phillipps  thinks  "  was  never  for- 
warded the  poet,"  and  cites  proof  in  Sturley's  letter  of  November.  Outlines^ 
etc.,  vol.  I,  p.  165. 

59 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

residence,"  but  he  tells  us  that  "his  retirement  to  Stratford 
did  not  exclude  an  occasional  visit  to  the  metropolis."  ^ 

This  view  seems  correct,  and  accounts  for  the  tradition, 
carelessly  related,  that  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  his  native 
town  instead  of  London,  after  the  purchase  of  New  Place. 
Phillipps  also  says  of  this  period,  "In  the  year  now  under 
consideration,  1598,  he  appears  not  only  as  an  advancer  of 
money,  but  also  —  one  who  negotiated  loans  through  other 
capitalists."  ^  His  analysis  of  the  actor's  transactions  should 
be  noted  by  students  interested  in  the  subject. 

During  the  period  that  he  resided  in  Stratford,  if  he  had 
friends  of  any  importance  in  London,  or  elsewhere,  we  might 
reasonably  suppose  that  he  would  correspond  with  them,  but 
not  a  letter  or  scrap  of  writing,  or  anything  connecting  him 
with  the  authorship  of  the  works  ascribed  to  him,  is  in 
existence.  If  the  florid  fancies  of  some  of  his  biographers  were 
true,  that  he  was  on  intimate  fraternal  relations  with  Lord 
Southampton,  something  ought  to  be  found  among  the  lat- 
ter's  records,  if  not  elsewhere,  to  show  it;  but  the, pleasant 
myth  of  this  ardent  friendship,  fostered  by  a  dishonest  pic- 
ture faker,  and  Ireland,  whose  forged  correspondence  between 
Southampton  and  him  afforded  a  promising  field  of  profit,  has 
come,  alas!  to  a  disastrous  end.  Not  so,  however,  the  sug- 
gestion left  on  the  subconscious  minds  of  disciples  who  still 
enjoy  the  •  afterglow  of  this  imaginary  relation  between  an 
aristocratic  lord  and  an  humble  commoner.  No,  the  actor  did 
not  bother  himself  with  correspondence  or  with  books,  but 
kept  on  in  his  pursuit  of  the  phantom  wealth  heedless  of  all 
else. 

There  is  enough  preserved  concerning  him  to  give  us  a 
fairly  correct  mental  picture  of  the  man  setting  out  for  the 
city  on  foot,  rude  and  unpolished,  speaking  the  uncouth  dia- 
lect of  the  Warwickshire  peasantry: — Phillipps  says,  "pa- 
tois"; close-fisted,  shrewd,  unscrupulous,  and  avaricious;  yet, 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  ii.  2  JUd.,  vol.  i,  p.  164. 

60 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

among  boon  companions,  replete  with  coarse  wit  and  boister- 
ous good-fellowship.  Such  is  the  man  as  we  see  him  delineated 
in  record  and  tradition. 

A  disciple  of  his  gives  us  this  picture  of  the  social  conditions 
which  moulded  him,  which  we  add  to  those  already  given :  — 

The  common  people  of  England  in  the  sixteenth  century  were 
fierce,  jovial,  rude,  hearty  and  pugnacious.  They  lived  out  of 
doors  and  had  but  few  books.  There  favorite  amusements  were 
bear  baitings,  cock  fights,  dog  fights,  foot-ball,  and  rough  and 
tumble  fighting.^ 

After  his  advent  in  the  metropolis  his  contact  with  men 
gradually  wore  off  the  acuter  angles  of  demeanor,  leaving 
him  still  an  unpolished  figure  in  the  world  of  business ;  such  a 
man  as  one  not  infrequently  meets,  good-natured,  friendly, 
and  crude,  who,  having  been  bred  amid  sordid  conditions,  has 
made  himself,  figuratively,  and  naturally  cherishes  a  grateful 
remembrance  of  his  maker. 

It  was  about  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  "Venus  and 
Adonis,"  the  close  of  that  mythical  period  during  which,  ac- 
cording to  his  biographers,  he  had  completed  his  marvelous 
education,  that  Robert  Greene  penned  this,  our  only  verbal 
portraiture  of  him :  — 

A  face  like  Thersites;  his  eyes  broad  and  tawney;  his  hair 
harsh  and  curled  like  a  horse's  mane  —  his  lips  were  of  the  larg- 
est size  in  folio  —  the  only  good  part  that  he  had  to  grace  his 
visage  was  his  nose,  and  that  was  conqueror-like,  as  beaked  as  an 
eagle. 

It  is  true  that  at  the  time  Greene  wrote  he  was  unfriendly 
to  the  actor,  but  he  was  describing  him  to  those  familiar  with 
his  appearance,  and  had  he  pictured  him  so  that  he  was  un- 
recognizable, he  would  have  missed  his  mark  totally.  De- 
lightful pictures  have  been  painted  of  his  "gentleness,"  "love 
of  children,"  and,  especially,  of  his  literary  friendships,  but 
there  is  an  entire  absence  of  evidence  to  this  effect.  Jonson 

^  Goadby,  The  England  of  Shakespeare. 

6i 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

has  been  especially  singled  out  as  one  of  his  very  close  friends, 
but  of  this  friendship,  Brandes,  who,  in  spite  of  his  Dalton- 
ism, gets  a  dash  of  true  color  into  his  portraiture,  makes  this 
bold  but  encouraging  stroke,  so  expressive  of  the  truth  that 
it  merits  attention :  — 

He  might  have  been  willing  enough  to  drink  in  the  company 
of  Ben  Jonson,  but  he  had  no  more  depth  of  affection  for  him 
than  for  any  other  of  the  dramatic  and  lyric  poets  among  whom 
his  lot  had  been  cast.^ 

This  might  be  regarded  by  "Bunglers  in  Criticism,"  as 
Brandes  designates  those  who  question  the  actor's  authorship, 
as  a  very  frank  acknowledgment  that  he  was  not  of  them,  and 
had  no  sympathy  with  their  work,  dramatic  or  poetic.  Evi- 
dently, however,  he  is  trying  to  break  the  force  of  the  fact 
that  the  actor  was  unknown  to  contemporary  authors.  Their 
silence  with  regard  to  this  "Midas  of  Poetry,'*  this  "Virgil 
in  Poetic  Art,"  has  but  a  single  interpretation;  they  knew 
that  he  was  not  of  them,  but  sported  the  persona  for  some 
of  their  profession.  Ingleby,  who  wrote  the  "Centurie  of 
Prayse,"  remarks  that  "No  man  in  1590  ever  saw  Shake- 
speare as  *the  man  whom  Nature's  self  had  made  to  mock 
herself  and  truth  to  imitate.'"  This  remark  aptly  applies 
to  him  through  life.  Works  bearing  his  name  were,  of  course, 
known,  and  deservedly  popular.  Even  his  biographers  have 
failed  to  identify  the  illiterate  peasant  of  Stratford,  reared 
to  the  rudest  of  occupations,  with  the  high-bred  gentleman 
and  scholar  revealed  in  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works.  Tolstoy  recognized  in  him  the  aristocrat  with  whom 
he  had  no  fellowship,  while  Bernard  Shaw  is  outspoken  in  his 
criticism  of  his  aristocratic  attitude  toward  the  common  peo- 
ple, and  a  well-known  writer  recently  wrote  these  pregnant 
words:  — 

"Shakespeare  was  not  of  us,"  cries  Browning  —  while  lament- 
ing the  defection  of  Wordsworth  from  the  ranks  of  progress  and 

^  George  Brandes,  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  11,  p.  410. 

62 


THE  GHOST  OF  HAMLET 

liberalism  —  "Milton  was  for  us,  Burns,  Shelley  were  with  us  — 
they  watch  from  their  graves  —  But  Shakespeare?  Shakespeare? 
Where  is  there  a  line  in  Shakespeare  to  entitle  him  to  a  place  in 
the  brotherhood?  Bottom,  the  weaver  with  the  ass's  head,  re- 
mains his  type  of  the  artisan,  and  the  "mutable  rank-scented 
many  his  type  of  the  masses."  ^ 

Dowden's  self-revealment  of  the  author  of  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works  reveals  "a  courtier,  a  lawyer,  a  man  of  learn- 
ing, an  aristocrat." 

Says  Bismarck : — 

I  could  not  understand  how  it  were  possible  that  a  man,  how- 
ever gifted  with  the  intuition  of  genius,  could  have  written  what 
was  attributed  to  Shakespeare,  unless  he  had  been  in  touch  with 
the  great  affairs  of  state,  behind  the  scenes  of  political  life,  and 
also  intimate  with  all  the  social  courtesies,  and  refinements  of 
thought,  which  in  Shakespeare's  time  were  only  to  be  met  with 
in  the  highest  circles; 

And  he  declares  it  to  be 

incredible  that  a  man  who  had  written  the  greatest  dramas  in  the 
world's  literature,  could  of  his  own  free  will,  whilst  still  in  the 
prime  of  life,  have  retired  to  such  a  place  as  Stratford-on-Avon, 
and  lived  for  years  cut  oif  from  intellectual  society  and  out  of 
touch  with  the  world.  ^ 

We  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  consider  whether  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  actor's  birth,  training,  occupation,  character,  and 
conduct  consistent  with  his  portraiture  as  revealed  in  the 
works  ascribed  to  him. 

Stratfordians  are  to  be  commiserated  in  their  unsuccessful 
attempts  to  prop  their  falling  cause.  Even  this  is  quoted  ap- 
provingly as  historic  verity :  — 

The  actor  at  this  time  was  acting,  writing  and  managing  —  he 
lived  among  the  fine  London  folks,  honoured  with  the  special 
notice  of  the  Queen,  and  associating  every  day  with  the  noblest 

^  Cf.  Ernest  Crosby,  Shakespeare^s  Attitude  toward  the  Working    Classes, 
Leo  Tolstoy,  Shakespeare.  New  York  and  London,  1906. 
^  Sidney  Whitman,  Latter  Days  of  Bismarck.  London,  1903. 

63 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

and  wealthiest  Englishmen  of  that  brilliant  time,  yet  never 
snapping  the  link  which  bound  him  to  the  sweet  banks  of  the 
Avon.^ 

We  thought  we  would  try  to  find  where  the  subject  of  this 
insufferable  adulation  really  was  at  this  time.  Thanks  to 
Professor  Wallace  we  are  enabled  to  do  so.  He  was  lodging 
in  a  mean  part  of  London,  among  people  of  his  own  class, 
petty  shopmen,  hucksters,  and  men  of  the  lowest  sort,  and 
yet  he  was,  says  Collier,  "Acting,  writing  and  managing." 
There  is  not  a  genuine  playbill  in  existence  to  show  any  part 
in  which  he  ever  acted ;  there  is  nothing  in  existence  except 
four  abbreviated  signatures,  characterized  by  pitiable  illit- 
eracy, to  show  that  he  was  above  a  mark-man;  absolutely 
nothing  to  show  that  he  was  ever  a  manager;  no,  "the  top  of 
his  performance,"  as  Rowe  his  first  biographer  says,  was  the 
ghost  in  Hamlet.  His  literary  attainments  and  successes  were 
chiefly  valued  as  serving  the  prosaic  end  of  providing  perma- 
nently for  himself  and  daughters.  "His  highest  ambition  was 
to  restore  among  his  fellow  townsmen  the  family  repute." 

The  writer  has  endeavored  faithfully  to  delineate  Shakspere 
of  Stratford,  to  "nought  extenuate;  nought  set  down  in 
malice";  drawing  his  materials  wholly  from  friendly  sources, 
save  in  a  single  instance.  This,  however,  is  how  his  biogra- 
phers, strive  as  they  may  to  render  the  ugly  fact  less  repulsive, 
finally  end  his  life  story:  "On  his  birthday,  April  23,  1616,  at 
the  age  of  52,  he '  Itt  seems  drank  too  hard  at  a  merrie  meeting 
and  dyed  of  a  feavour  there  contracted.'" 

^  Collier's  History  of  English  Literature. 


IV 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

In  order  to  place  our  subject  in  right  perspective,  we  have 
considered  the  conditions  existing  in  England  during  the 
period  in  which  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  were  produced; 
their  character,  as  regarded  by  the  literary  world,  and  the 
personality  of  their  titular  author.  As  much  of  a  fragmentary- 
nature  has  been  written  respecting  the  validity  of  this  title, 
we  should  consider  this  branch  of  the  subject.  No  biographer 
of  the  Stratford  actor  has  escaped  the  painful  dilemma  in 
which  he  found  himself,  when  he  considered  the  wonderful 
erudition  and  poetic  genius  displayed  in  the  works  in  ques- 
tion, and  attempted  to  form  an  acquaintance  with  their  pu- 
tative author.  This  feeling  is  not  peculiar  to  the  student  of 
the  twentieth  century;  it  has  often  found  expression  in  the 
past.  Let  us  place  ourselves  in  London  at  the  time  of  the 
future  actor's  arrival  in  1587,  and  keep  him  and  his  surround- 
ings in  view  amid  the  conditions  we  have  described,  during 
his  life  there. 

At  first,  it  is  conceded,  he  found  temporary  employment  in 
the  Burbage  stables,  and,  later,  held  the  horses  of  the  patrons 
of  "The  Theater,"  which  stood  in  the  pleasant  fields  of  the 
Liberty  at  Shoreditch,  then  a  rural  suburb  of  the  metropolis. 
His  diligence  and  readiness  to  make  himself  useful  led  to  his 
employment  as  call  boy,  and  here  he  was  in  a  position  to  be- 
come acquainted  with  the  business  of  the  theater,  to  form 
friendly  relations  with  the  actors,  and,  through  them,  with 
some  of  the  writers  who  supplied  his  employers  with  plays. 
Just  how  long  it  took  him  to  reach  this  position  we  cannot 
determine,  probably  not  long,  nor,  indeed,  very  long  to  be  able 
to  take  minor  parts  in  plays,  for  he  had  been  from  youth 

65 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

familiar  with  the  acting  of  strolUng  players,  some  of  whom  he 
must  have  known  when  they  visited  Stratford  and  were  en- 
tertained by  his  father.  This  rough  but  good-natured  and 
resourceful  rustic  of  twenty-three,  speaking  the  rude  but 
amusing  dialect  of  Warwickshire,  was  in  a  position  to  make  | 
himself  useful  to  the  Burbages,  and  to  become  in  time,  as 
Greene  designates  him,  an  "absolute  Factotum"  and  man 
of  affairs.  Before  his  arrival  in  London,  "Euphues,"  herald 
of  the  English  novel,  and  the  "  Shepherd's  Calendar,"  harbin- 
ger of  a  new  era  in  poetry,  had  aroused  a  fresh  interest  in 
literature,  and  from  this  time  works  of  a  higher  order  of  genius 
began  to  appear.  Plays  of  a  new  type  found  their  way  to  the 
stage,  and  supplanted  those  of  the  past.  Though  anonymous, 
they  seem  to  have  passed  as  the  work  of  men  who  were  known 
as  petty  actors  and  playwrights. 

If  we  allow  a  couple  of  years  for  this  raw  rustic  to  arrive 
at  the  position  accorded  him,  —  namely,  1589,  —  we  easily 
recognize  the  men  who  composed  the  literary  Bohemia  of 
London,  with  several  of  whom  he  probably  had  some  ac- 
quaintance. Robert  Greene,  who  had  received  a  degree  from 
Cambridge,  was  about  twenty-eight,  a  man  of  the  vilest 
habits,  who  picked  up  a  subsistence  by  acting  minor  parts 
on  the  stage,  and  by  writing ;  Thomas  Lodge,  thirty-two,  who 
was  then  of  some  repute  as  a  writer ;  John  Lyly,  graduate  of 
Oxford,  thirty-four,  regarded  as  a  promising  author;  Christo- 
pher Marlowe,  a  Cambridge  graduate,  twenty-four,  a  repro- 
bate doomed  by  his  violent  nature  to  an  untimely  end; 
Thomas  Middleton,  Gray's  Inn,  twenty,  soon  to  be  a  popular 
playwright;  Thomas  Nash,  also  a  Cambridge  man,  twenty- 
one,  and  sometimes  a  co-worker  with  Greene ;  John  Webster, 
co-worker  with  the  two  former;  George  Peele,  an  Oxford 
graduate  and  reckless  sot ;  Anthony  Munday,  thirty-six.  Poet 
Laureate  of  London;  and  Michael  Drayton,  twenty-five, 
since  honored  with  a  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey;  Ben 
Jonson,  then  unheard  of,  was  in  school,  being  but  fourteen  or 

66 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

fifteen  years  old.  These  men,  too  many  of  them  of  dissolute 
habits,  were  professional  workers  who  obtained  a  precarious 
living  wholly  or  partly  by  their  pens,  several  of  thera  eking 
out  their  incomes  by  taking  minor  parts  on  the  stage.  Be- 
sides these  were  young  men  connected  with  the  Inns  of  Court 
who  wrote  anonymously  or  under  pseudonyms ;  indeed,  it  was 
a  common  practice  for  authors  to  use  the  names  of  others  on 
their  title-pages,  and  for  publishers  to  issue  their  wares  under 
well-known  names  or  suggestive  initials.  No  book,  however, 
could  be  published  without  a  registered  license.  Then,  as  now, 
the  market  was  overstocked  with  literary  material  which 
never  received  sufficient  encouragement  to  be  honored  with 
registration.  Plays  accepted  for  the  stage  were  sent  to  a 
scrivenry,  where  copies  in  suflScient  number  for  the  use  of  the 
actors  were  made,  and  these  became  one  of  the  "properties" 
of  the  theater.  It  was  not  necessary  for  the  author's  name 
to  appear  on  the  Stationers'  Register,  that  of  the  owner  of 
the  manuscript  who  had  purchased  it  for  profit  being  suffi- 
cient. 

Leaving  the  future  actor  amid  the  conditions  we  have  de- 
scribed, we  will  endeavor  to  get  a  glimpse  of  him  as  he  ap- 
peared to  his  contemporaries  while  pursuing  his  life  in  the 
London  of  his  time. 

AS    SEEN    BY  CONTEMPORARIES 

We  are  not  to  regard  it  as  strange  that  so  little  personal 
notice  was  taken  of  him,  especially  when  we  consider  how  the 
players'  profession,  of  which  he  was  an  inferior  member,  was 
regarded  during  his  life.  It  is  stranger  that  what  was  said  did 
not  identify  him  with  works  which  bear  his  name.  Every 
attempt  has  been  made,  not  always  intentionally,  to  befog 
this  issue.  We  know  how  writers  have  pressed  into  their 
service  Lord  Southampton,  who,  when  the  actor  went  to 
London,  was  a  lad  of  fourteen,  having  been  born  in  1573. 
At  a  later  age  he  was  an  intimate  friend  and  imitator  of  the 

67 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

unfortunate  Essex,  and  when  in  1592  the  "Venus  and  Adonis" 
was  dedicated  to  him  by  its  author,  was  a  hopelessly  dissolute 
young  blade  of  nineteen  at  court.  Like  other  titled  court 
favorites  who  were  regarded  as  superior  beings  by  the  humble 
actors,  whose  greatest  joy  it  was  to  sport  their  garb,  and  imi- 
tate their  manners  for  a  brief  hour  upon  the  stage,  the  gay 
young  nobleman  patronized  the  playhouses,  and,  being  a 
somewhat  conspicuous  person,  naturally  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  actors;  hence  it  was  but  natural  for  writers  to 
dedicate  their  effusions  to  this  influential  youth,  and  to 
couch  their  dedicatory  epistles  in  the  most  respectful  and 
amiable  terms.  Several  did  so,  notably  Barnes,  who  ad- 
dressed Southampton's  eyes  as  "The  heavenly  lamps  that 
gave  the  Muses  light,"  and  even  the  graver  Florio,  in  his 
dedication  to  him  of  a  dictionary,  effervesces  in  this  fashion: 
"As  to  me  and  many  more  the  glorious  and  generous  sun- 
shine of  your  honour,  hath  infused  light  and  life." 

Dedications  to  wealthy  noblemen  by  needy  authors  were 
plentiful,  and  do  not  indicate  personal  relations  or  even  a 
speaking  acquaintance  between  them.  The  volumes  that 
have  been  written,  based  solely  upon  assumption,  some  of 
them  offensively  sentimental,  to  prove  intimate  personal  re- 
lations between  the  actor  and  Southampton  are  pure  fiction. 
Even  poor  young  Ireland,  who  seems  to  have  possessed  a 
sense  of  research  unusually  keen,  being  unable  to  find  satis- 
factory evidence  of  such  a  personal  friendship,  thought  it 
would  be  well  to  fabricate  it,  and,  to  one  who  is  willing  to 
waste  time  on  such  a  subject,  it  is  curious  to  observe  how 
Ireland's  fictions  have  been  reflected  in  much  that  has  been 
written  upon  it  since. 

Perhaps  the  gossip  respecting  the  gift  of  a  thousand  pounds 
by  Southampton  to  the  actor,  which  seems  to  be  now  fast 
growing  into  an  historical  fact,  should  be  alluded  to  in 
passing.  Rowe  first  gave  it  currency  a  century  and  a  half 
after  the  actor's  death:  — 

68 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

There  is  one  instance  so  singular  in  the  magnificence  of  this 
patron  of  Shakespeare's,  that  if  I  had  not  been  assured  that 
the  story  was  handed  down  by  Sir  WiUiam  Davenant,  who  was 
probably  very  well  acquainted  with  his  affairs,.!  should  not  have 
ventured  to  have  inserted,  that  my  lord  Southampton  at  one 
time  gave  him  a  thousand  pounds  to  enable  him  to  go  through 
with  a  purchase  which  he  heard  he  had  a  mind  to.^ 

Evidently  Rowe  was  unacquainted  with  the  character  of 
Davenant,  who  he  had  been  "assured"  by  some  one  was  the 
source  of  the  story,  nor  would  he  have  suggested  that  he  was 
"very  well  acquainted  with  his  affairs"  had  he  been  aware 
that  Davenant  was  but  ten  years  old  when  the  actor  died,  and 
unborn  when  he  acquired  New  Place,  which  some  commenta- 
tors have  inferred  was  the  purchase  alluded  to,  and  which  cost 
but  sixty  pounds.  Phillipps,  who  thinks  the  supposed  gift  was 
for  the  Asbies  lawsuit,  computes  the  relative  value  of  money, 
when  he  wrote  in  1886,  at  twelve  times  its  value  then;  that 
is,  twelve  thousand  pounds  or  sixty  thousand  dollars.  Other 
writers  have  made  equally  unwarranted  estimates.  Lee  au- 
thoritatively assures  us  that  the  purchasing  power  of  money 
was  then  "eight  times  what  it  is  now";  ^  and  White,  that  it 
was  six  times ;  ^  while  Malone  informs  us  that  it  was  three  and 
a  half  times  greater.^  The  difference  in  the  comparative  pur- 
chasing value  of  money  at  the  time  these  authors  wrote  does 
not  at  all  account  for  their  widely  varying  estimates.  The 
fact  is,  that  to  make  an  estimate  of  the  relative  purchasing 
power  of  money  at  widely  separated  periods  would  require 
precise  knowledge  of  the  value  of  all  commodities  at  both 
periods,  something  in  this  case  not  obtainable,  and  writers 
on  the  very  fruitful  theme  of  the  authorship  of  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works  have  as  usual  regaled  us  with  guesses. 

^  Rowe's  Life  of  Shakespeare ;  George  Steevens,  Esq.,  The  Plays  of  William 
Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  ix.   London,  1803. 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  3. 

3  White,  The  Writings  of  Shakespeare,  p.  xli. 

*  Johnson  and  Steevens,  The  Plays  and  Poems  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  73. 
London, 1803. 

69 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

We  may  well  dismiss  Rowe  as  a  disqualified  witness  in  re- 
gard to  the  relations  between  Southampton  and  the  actor. 
Rowe  wrote  the  first  life-sketch  of  the  actor,  constructing  it 
of  hearsay  and  gossip.  To  this  flimsy  structure  theorists  have 
added  material  of  a  similar  character,  until  this  "baseless 
fabric  of  a  vision"  fronts  the  world  like  an  impregnable 
fortress. 

BEN  JONSON 

Let  us  now  examine  Ben  Jonson,  whose  testimony  is  al- 
ways appealed  to  by  the  actor's  biographers  as  the  most  im- 
portant, as  he  and  Marlowe  are  claimed  to  have  been  his  two 
intimates.  As  a  knowledge  of  the  character  of  a  witness  is 
important,  we  will  seek  it  from  such  friendly  sources  as 
Brandes  and  Malone.  Says  the  former:  — 

He  was  strong  and  massive  in  body,  racy  and  coarse,  full  of 
self-esteem  and  combative  instincts,  —  a  true  poet  in  so  far  as  he 
was  not  only  irregular  in  his  life  and  quite  incapable  in  saving 
any  of  the  money  he  now  and  then  earned,  but  was,  moreover, 
subject  to  hallucinations.  ...  In  September  —  "1598"  —  he 
killed  in  a  duel  another  of  Henslowe's  actors  —  Gabriel  Spencer 
—  and  was  therefore  branded  on  the  thumb  with  the  letter  T 
(Tyburn).^ 

While  Ben  lay  in  durance  on  account  of  his  duel,  he  was 
converted  to  Catholicism  by  a  priest  who  attended  him.  After 
his  reconciliation  with  Protestantism,  in  token  of  his  sincere 
return  to  the  doctrine  which  gave  laymen  as  well  as  priests 
access  to  the  chalice,  he  drained  at  one  draught  the  whole  of 
the  consecrated  wine.  "Not  without  humor,"  moreover,  to 
use  Jonson's  own  favorite  words,  is  the  story  of  the  way  in 
which  Raleigh's  son,  to  whom  he  acted  as  governor  during 
a  tour  in  France,  took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  making  his 
mentor  dead  drunk,  having  him  wheeled  in  a  wheelbarrow 
through  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  showing  him  off  to  the  mob 
at  every  street  corner. 

*  George  Brandes,  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  pp.  385-88.  New  York,  1898. 

70 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Malone  also  refers  to  a  similar  incident :  — 

One  day  when  Ben  had  taken  a  plentiful  dose,  young  Raleigh 
got  a  great  blanket,  and  a  couple  of  men,  who  layd  Ben  in  it, 
and  then  with  a  pole  carried  him  between  their  shoulders  to  Sir 
Walter,  telling  him  their  young  master  had  sent  home  his  tutor.  ^ 

Gifford,  his  biographer,  endeavored  to  discredit  this,  call- 
ing it  "an  absurd  tale,''  but  having  his  attention  called  to 
the  evidence,  acknowledged  his  error.  Dyce  corrects  it  in  a 
note.^ 

In  the  summer  of  1618,  Jonson  undertook  a  pedestrian 
journey  to  Edinburgh,  where  he  became  the  guest  of  William 
Drummond,  the  poet.  This  is  the  record  that  Drummond 
made  after  his  departure,  which  he  evidently  welcomed, 
though  he  admired  Jonson's  literary  genius. 

January  19,  1619.  He  is  a  great  lover  and  praiser  of  himself; 
a  contemner  and  scorner  of  others;  given  rather  to  lose  a  friend 
than  a  jest;  jealous  of  every  word  and  action  of  those  about  him 
(especially  after  drink,  which  is  one  of  the  elements  in  which  he 
liveth):  a  dissembler  of  ill  parts  which  raigne  in  him;  a  bragger 
of  some  good  he  wanteth;  thinketh  nothing  well  but  what  either 
he  himself  or  some  of  his  friends  and  countrymen  hath  said  or 
done,  he  is  passionately  kynde  and  angry;  careless  either  to  gain 
or  keep;  vindictive,  but  if  he  is  well  answered,  at  himself. 

For  any  religion,  as  being  versed  in  both.  Interpreteth  best 
sayings  and  deeds  often  to  the  worst.  Oppressed  with  fantasie, 
which  hath  ever  mastered  his  reason,  a  general  disease  in  many 
Poets.^ 

Barrett  Wendell,  his  biographer,  pronounces  this,  "in- 
comparably the  most  vivid  portrait  in  existence  of  an  Eliza- 
bethan man  of  letters." 

Jonson's  style  of  invective  is  seen  in  this  skit  in  behalf  of 
Poesy  aimed,  it  is  believed,  at  the  actor:  "Nor  is  it  any  blem- 
ish to  her  fame,  that  such  lean,  ignorant  and  blasted  wits, 

^  Johnson  and  Steevens,  The  Plays  and  Poems  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  ii,  p.  388. 

2  William  Gifford,  The  Works  of  Ben  Jonson,  pp.  10,  43.   Boston,  1853. 

3  Dyce,  Notes  on  Ben  Jonson^s  Conversations,  p.  21. 

71 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

such  brainless  gulls,  should  utter  their  Stolen  wares  with  such 
appliances  in  our  vulgar  ears." 

This  is  perhaps  enough  to  give  us  an  approximately  fair 
picture  of  the  witness,  and  now  we  will  consider  his  testimony. 
In  his  lines  accompanying  the  Droeshout  portrait  in  the  Folio, 
he  says  this:  — 

To  the  Reader 

This  Figure,  that  thou  here  seest  put, 

It  was  for  gentle  Shakespeare  cut; 
Wherein  the  Grauer  had  a  strife 

With  Nature,  to  out-doo  the  life: 
O,  could  he  but  have  drawne  his  wit 

As  well  in  brasse,  as  he  hath  hit 
His  face;  the  Print  would  then  surpasse 

All,  that  was  euer  writt  in  brasse. 
But,  since  he  cannot,  Reader,  looke 

Not  on  his  Picture,  but  his  Booke. 

It  may  be  asked,  how  Jonson's  address  can  be  reconciled 
with  the  theory  that  neither  the  "Picture"  nor  the  "Booke" 
are  the  actor's,  and  preserve  the  commonly  accepted  meaning 
of  the  address .? 

A  fair  answer  may  be  given  to  this  by  showing  how  in- 
sincere such  expressions  were  at  the  time  this  was  written. 
There  is  ample  evidence  of  their  worthlessness,  and  Malone 
gives  us  his  opinion  in  this  case.  Referring  to  Droeshout's 
portraits,  he  says :  — 

By  comparing  any  of  these  prints  with  the  original  pictures 
from  whence  the  engravings  were  made,  a  better  judgment 
might  be  formed  of  the  fidelity  of  our  author's  portrait,  as  ex- 
hibited by  this  engraver,  than  from  Jonson's  assertion,  that 
in  "this  figure" 

"the  Grauer  had  a  strife 
With  Nature,  to  out-doo  the  life"; 

a  compliment  which  in  the  books  of  that  age  was  paid  to  so 
many  engravers,  that  nothing  decisive  can  be  inferred  from 
it.i 

*  Johnson  and  Steevens,  The  Plays  and  Poems  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  88. 

72 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY'  PROBLEMS 

As  to  the  worthlessness  of  prefatory  eulogies,  we  take  this 
evidence  of  Lee :  — 

Adulatory  sonnets  to  patrons  are  met  with  in  the  preliminary 
or  concluding  pages  of  numerous  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
tury books.  Sonnets  addressed  to  men  are  not  only  found  in  the 
preliminary  pages,  but  are  occasionally  interpolated  in  sonnet- 
sequences  of  fictitious  love.^ 

Scores  of  instances  could  be  cited  to  show  that  the  most 
exaggerated  praise  of  worthless  portraits,  and  the  loftiest  ex- 
pressions of  friendship,  purely  fictitious,  were,  in  Jonson's 
time,  the  fashion  in  prefatory  addresses.  In  this  case  Jonson 
was  following  a  well-beaten  path,  and  it  is  extremely  im- 
probable that  he  had  seen  Droeshout's  caricature  of  the 
actor  before  writing.  Is  it  doing  violence  to  ethical  canons 
to  suggest  that  Jonson's  effusion  was  purely  professional, 
paid  for  in  current  coin  of  the  realm,  and  was  not  prompted  by 
a  "loving  interest,"  as  Phillipps  fancied,  in  Jaggard's  so-called 
speculation  ? 

If  we  are  to  believe  some  of  the  older  writers  who  have 
given  examples  of  Jonson's  expressions  with  regard  to  the 
subject  of  his  eulogy,  he  could  not  have  taken  a  "loving  inter- 
est" in  the  publication  of  writings  attributed  to  him;  in  fact, 
in  1598,  he  said:  "He  degrades  the  stage";  in  1601,  "He  bar- 
barizes the  English  language,  —  He  wags  an  ass's  ears;  He 
is  an  ape";  in  1614,  "His  tales  are  but  drolleries";  in 
1616,  "He  is  a  poet-ape  and  upstart;  a  hypocrit";  and  in 
1619,  "He  wanted  art  and  sometime  sense."  This  has  been 
taken  as  implying  that  Jonson  recognized  him  as  an  author; 
but  what  we  have  quoted  above,  namely,  "He  degrades  the 
stage,"  is  the  keynote  to  his  subsequent  utterances,  and  is 
good  evidence  that  Jonson  in  every  case  referred  to  the  only 
art  he  laid  claim  to,  namely,  the  histrionic  art.  Even  the  term 
"poet-ape"  simply  means  one  who  aped  or  mimicked  a  poet. 

This  was  all  changed,  however,  in  1623,  and  unless  there  was 

1  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  138. 

73 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

some  unusual  reason  for  this  change,  would  it  not  seem  more 

reasonable  to  conclude  that  he  took  his  fee  and  served  his 

client,  and  so  must  not  be  taken  any  more  seriously  than  the 

editors,  Heminge  and  Condell? 

The  perfunctory  character  of  the  address  is  suggested  by 

comparing  it  with  other  contemporary  addresses  containing 

similar  sentiments.    Under  the  portrait  of  Captain  John 

Smith,  1616,  is  the  following,  for  instance:  — 

These  are  the  Lines  that  shew  thy  Face;  but  these 

That  shew  thy  Grace  and  Glory  brighter  bee. 

Thy  Faire  Discoveries  and  Fowle-Overthrowes 

Of  Salvages,  much  Civiliz'd  by  thee 

Best  shew  thy  spirit,  and  to  it  Glory  Wyn: 

So  thou  art  Brasse  without,  but  Gold  within.  ^ 

The  lines  under  the  portrait  of  Du  Bartas,  162 1,  probably 
furnished  Jonson  with  the  closing  sentiments  of  his  eulogy:  — 

Ces  traits  au  front,  marquez  de  Scavoir  i^  d* Esprit 
Ne  Sont  que  du  Bartas  un  ombre  exterieur 
Le  Pinceau  n'en  pent  plus;  mais,  de  sa  propre  Plume 
II  s'est  peint  le  Dedans,  dans  son  divin  Volume.^ 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  that  there  is  one  expression  in  the 
eulogy  by  Jonson  which  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  theory 
of  the  actor's  non-authorship  of  the  plays  in  the  Folio:  — 

Sweet  Swan  of  Avon!  what  a  sight  it  were 
To  see  thee  in  our  waters  yet  appeare. 

Of  course  this  seems  to  identify  the  actor  with  the  author, 
for  such  an  expression  as  occurs  in  the  following:  — 

Or  when  thy  Sockes  were  on 
Leave  thee  alone  for  the  comparison 
Of  all,  that  insolent  Greece  or  haughtie  Rome 
Sent  forth,  or  since  did  from  their  ashes  come,  — 

might  be  claimed  to  be  a  mere  figure  of  speech  which  an 
eulogist  could  apply  to  any  actor  or  even  author;  but  "Sweet 
Swan  of  Avon"  seems  to  be  an  identification.  Before  meeting 

^  A  Description  of  New  England.  London,  1616. 
*  Du  Bartas,  his  Divine  Weekes  and  JVorkes.   1621. 

74 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

this  objection  it  may  be  proper  to  call  attention  to  the  singular 
fact  that  Jonson  used  the  sentiments  in  the  latter  quotation 
in  eulogizing  Bacon,  whom,  he  declares:  — 

Hath  filled  up  all  numbers,  and  performed  that  in  our  tongue, 
which  may  he  compared  or  preferred  either  to  insolent  Greece  or 
haughty  Rome,  in  short,  within  his  view,  and  about  his  time  were 
all  the  wits  born  that  could  honour  a  language ^"^ 

That  Jonson  was  an  extravagant  eulogist  appears  from  the 
following,  addressed  to  Edward  AUeyn,  an  actor,  who  ac- 
cumulated property  and  left  it  to  found  the  institution  known 
as  Dulwich  College :  — 

If  Rome  so  great  and  in  her  wisest  age, 
Fear'd  not  to  boast  the  glories  of  her  stage; 
As  skilful  Roscious,  and  grave  iEsop,  men 
Yet  crown'd  with  honours,  as  with  riches  then; 
Who  had  no  less  a  trumpet  of  their  name 
Than  Cicero,  whose  every  breath  was  fame: 
How  can  so  great  example  die  in  me? 
That,  Allen,  I  should  pause  to  publish  thee; 
Who  both  their  graces  in  thyself  hast  more 
Outstript,  than  they  did  all  that  went  before, 
And  present  worth  in  all  does  so  contract 
As  others  speak,  but  only  thou  dost  act. 
Wear  this  renoun  —  't  is  just  that  who  did  give 
So  many  poets  life,  by  one  should  live.^ 

AUeyn  acquired  wealth  as  Henslowe  did  by  dealing  in 
dramatic  material,  and  does  not  seem  to  have  made  much 
fame  as  an  actor;  yet  Jonson  says  that  he  as  far  outstripped 
Roscious,  the  greatest  figure  of  his  time  in  Roman  comedy, 
and  iEsop  Clodius,  regarded  by  Horace  as  his  equal  in  tragedy, 
both  intimate  friends  of  Cicero,  and  the  former  his  instructor, 
as  they  did  all  their  predecessors.  What  reliance  can  be  placed 
upon  a  man  who  deals  in  such  fiction  as  this?  Perhaps  this 
effusion  may  pass  as  one  of  the  "hallucinations"  of  which 
his  biographer  speaks.    Attention  should  also  be  called  to 

^  Ben  Jonson,  Timber  or  Discoveries^  p.  47.   London,  1898. 

2  William  Gifford,  The  Works  oj  Ben  Jonson,  p.  792.  Boston,  1853. 

75 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

what  he  says  regarding  the  actor's  art.  In  the  eulogy  he  ex- 
claims: "His  Art  doth  give  the  fashion";  yet  a  short  time 
before  he  told  Drummond  that  "Shakspeer  wanted  arte." 
Ingleby's  weak  attempt  to  break  the  force  of  this  remark  by 
casting  doubt  on  Drummond's  accuracy  is  far  from  convinc- 
ing; and  now  as  to  the  term  "Sweet  Swan  of  Avon." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  seems  to  reveal  Jonson's  intention 
to  identify  the  author  of  the  works  with  the  actor.  We  are 
quite  willing  to  admit  that  he  knew  whether  he  was  or  was 
not  their  author,  but  whether  he  has  revealed  to  us  this 
knowledge  is  another  matter.  What,  however,  has  been 
quoted  to  show  the  character  of  "Honest  Ben"  and  his 
disregard  of  the  verities  is  sufficient  to  disqualify  him  as  a 
reliable  witness;  but  though  his  testimony  is  of  little  value, 
so  many  believe  that  he,  if  nobody  else,  knew  who  was 
the  author  of  the  works,  that  we  venture  to  introduce  the 
swan  story  of  Ariosto  related  by  Bacon, ^  which  is  to  the 
effect,  that  to  the  thread  of  every  man's  life  is  attached  a 
medal  bearing  his  name.  When  this  thread  is  severed  by  the 
fatal  shears,  it  is  seized  by  a  swan  which  bears  it  away.  The 
swans  in  their  aimless  flight  drop  many  of  the  medals  which 
fall  into  the  river  Lethe,  and  are  lost;  but  some  swans,  having 
medals  with  worthy  names,  bear  them  to  the  Temple  of  Im- 
mortality. This  story  was  familiar  to  Jonson,  and  it  might 
be  asked  whether,  if  he  knew  that  the  actor  was  not  the 
author,  he  might  not  have  figured  him  in  one  of  his  "fits  of 
fantasie"  as  the  swan  who  bore  the  real  author's  name  to  the 
Temple?  The  question  is  perhaps  of  small  moment,  but  it 
is  certainly  suggestive.  There  are  allusions  also  in  Jonson's 
eulogy  which  are  quite  as  misleading  as  this ;  but  aside  from 
the  sufficient  fact  of  his  unreliability,  we  must  not  forget 
that  he  was  exercising  his  talents  professionally,  and  could 
not  well  have  avoided  allusion  to  the  titular  author  of  the 
book  which  he  was  introducing  to  his  readers. 

*  De  Augmentisy  Spedding,  vol.  8,  p.  428. 

76 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Of  course,  since  the  inscription  by  an  unknown  hand  was 
placed  upon  the  actor's  tomb,  many,  with  only  a  hearsay 
knowledge  of  him,  and  perhaps  with  no  knowledge  at  all  of 
the  history  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  have  recorded 
their  belief  that  he  was  their  author,  but  this  only  proves  the 
validity  of  the  belief  in  the  same  degree  that  the  record  of  a  be- 
lief in  predestination  or  any  other  dogma  proves  it  to  be  true. 

But  we  must  not  lightly  dismiss  "Honest  Ben,"  for  he  is 
to  prove  a  most  important  witness,  and  is  to  reveal  to  us  the 
"Sweet  Swan  of  Avon"  in  a  startling  manner.  In  1599, 
"Every  Man  out  of  his  Humor"  was  placed  upon  the  stage, 
which  clearly  discloses  his  knowledge  of  the  secret  he  has  con- 
cealed with  so  much  bluster  in  the  Eulogy,  and  why  he  later 
applied  to  the  actor  the  term  "poet-ape"  and  "hypocrit," 
meaning  one  who  apes  a  poet,  a  hypocrite  "  on  the  Greek  stage 
being"  a  mimic  who  accompanied  the  delivery  of  an  actor 
by  gestures.  In  this  play,  under  the  guise  of  Sogliardo,  a 
clown,  is  presented  in  a  ridiculous  light,  the  man  whom  after 
his  death,  if  he  meant  the  actor,  he  professed  to  have  loved 
"on  this  side  idolatry."  He  also  presents  another  friend, 
Puntavolo.  The  likenesses  are  so  boldly  drawn  as  to  be  un- 
mistakable. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  shortly  before  the  production  of 
this  play,  the  actor  had  secured  the  recognition  by  the  Herald's 
College  of  a  coat  of  arms,  for  which  application  had  been 
made  some  years  before  by  his  father.  The  strenuous  efforts, 
and  the  vulgar  methods  resorted  to  in  obtaining  this  recogni- 
tion, naturally  furnished  the  wits  with  a  fruitful  subject  for 
ridicule,  and  supplied  matter  for  several  plays.  Jonson,  al- 
ways impecunious,  seized  upon  it  for  capital,  and  used  it  with 
signal  advantage.  He  even  made  his  names  picturesque: 
Sogliardo  (sloven)  who  is  said  to  have  a  brother,  Sordido 
(miser)  is  a  clown  who  has  purchased  a  coat  of  arms,  and 
Puntavolo  (a  swift  point)  in  this  case  a  skilled  spearman,  for 
he  is  called  in  the  play  a  pheuterer  (spear-bearer),  a  pheuter 

11 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

being  a  rest  attached  to  the  saddle  of  a  man  at  arms  to  sup- 
port the  spear.  We  are  told  in  the  "Faerie  Queene'':  — 
A  speare  hefeutred  and  at  him  he  bore.^ 

With  these  is  Carlo  Buffone  (Buffoon)  who  enlivens  the 
dialogue.  More  clearly  to  identify  this  spear-bearer  he  also 
bears  Bacon's  crest,  a  boar  statant,  while  the  clown's  crest 
is  the  same  boar  diffait  et  rampant,  or  decapitated  and  up- 
right. When  the  spear-man  inquires  what  his  purchased 
crest  represents,  he  replies:  "Your  Bore  without  a  head." 

This  is  the  scene :  — 

Enter  Sogliardoy  Puntavolo,  Carlo. 

Sog.  (in  his  Warwickshire  dialect).  Nay,  I  will  haue  him,  I 
am  resolute  for  that,  by  this  Parchment,  Gentlemen,  I  haue  ben 
so  toil'd  among  the  Harrots  yonder,  you  will  not  beleeue;  they 
doe  speake  i'  the  straungest  language,  and  giue  a  man  the  hard- 
est termes  for  his  money,  that  euer  you  knew. 

Car.  But  ha'  you  armes  ?   ha'  you  armes  ? 

Sog.  Yfaith,  I  thanke  God  I  can  write  myselfe  Gentleman 
now,  here's  my  Pattent,  it  cost  me  thirtie  pound  by  this  breath. 

Punt.  A  very  faire  Coat,  well  charg'd  and  full  of  Armorie. 

Sog.  Nay,  it  has  as  much  varietie  of  colours  in  it,  as  you  haue 
scene  a  Coat  haue,  how  like  you  the  Crest,  Sir.f* 

Punt.  I  vnderstand  it  not  well,  what  is't? 

Sog.  Marry  Sir,  it  is  your  Bore  without  a  head.  Rampant. 

Punt.  A  Bore  without  a  head,  that's  very  rare. 

Car.  I,  and  Rampant  too;  troth  I  commend  the  Herald's  wit, 
he  has  deciphered  him  well;  A  Swine  without  a  head,  without 
braine,  wit,  anything  indeed.  Ramping  to  Gentilitie.  You  can 
blazon  the  rest  signior.^  Can  you  not.^ 

Punt.  Let  the  word  be,  "Not  without  mustard,"  your  Crest 
is  very  rare,  sir. 

Car.  A  frying-pan  to  the  crest,  had  had  no  fellow. 

(Act  III,  Scene  i.) 

This  blazon,  or  motto,  which  Puntavolo  suggests  as  appro- 
priate to  the  crest  of  Sogliardo,  plainly  identifies  it  with  that 

^  Faerie  Queene^  i/,  iv,  45. 

78 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  the  actor,  which  was  "Not  without  Right."  Its  attach- 
ment to  Bacon's  coat  of  arms  is  significant,  and  especially  so 
is  Sogliardo's  reply  to  Puntavolo  when  asked  what  arms  he 
had  acquired :  "  Your  Bore  without  a  head."  Jonson  is  said 
to  have  made  the  actor's  acquaintance  in  1598,  not  long  before 
this  scene  was  written.  He  had  been  in  London  eleven  years, 
but  the  picture  that  Jonson  draws  of  him  under  the  title  of 
Sogliardo,  though  possibly  exaggerated,  must  preserve  in 
some  degree  the  impression  which  he  made  upon  his  carica- 
turist years  after  many  of  the  best  plays  were  published. 
We  are  certainly  justified  in  dismissing  "Honest  Ben"  as  a 
witness  for  the  defendant. 

But  how  shall  we  dispose  of  Puntavolo,  the  feuterer,  or 
spear-bearer,  so  analogous  to  the  word  Shake-spear,  for  it  is 
to  this  word  that  it  is  related,  and  of  his  crest  which  as  fully 
identifies  him  with  Bacon  as  if  Bacon's  name  had  been  used; 
or  how  dispose  of  the  clown  possessing  Bacon's  crest,  but 
headless  or  brainless,  which,  with  the  motto,  as  plainly  indi- 
cates the  actor  as  if  it,  too,  bore  his  name?  We  leave  the 
question  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader,  and  whether  Jonson 
knew  that  the  ignorant  actor  was  enjoying  an  honor  not  legit- 
imately his. 

Let  us  now  place  upon  the  stand  another  contemporary, 
Robert  Greene.  Greene  was  six  years  the  senior  of  the  actor, 
having  taken  a  master's  degree  at  Cambridge  in  1583,  and 
having  since  led  a  loose  life  like  most  of  his  associates.  He 
was  an  erratic  genius  with  a  sensitive  conscience,  and  an  over- 
powering thirst  for  alcohol;  hence,  seasons  of  debauchery 
and  want  were  followed  by  periods  of  passionate  repentance. 
He  died  in  1592  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-four,  "after  a  de- 
bauch of  pickled  herrings  and  Rhenish." 

In  his  "Farewell  to  Folly,"  1587,  reflecting,  no  doubt,  the 
feelings  of  others  as  well  as  his  own,  he  expresses  his  views 
respecting  the  authorship  of  the  plays  popularly  imputed  to 
the  actor,  attributing  them  to  some  who,  "  For  their  calling 

79 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

and  gravity,  being  loth  to  have  any  profane  pamphlets  pass 
under  their  hands  get  some  other  to  set  his  name  to  their 
verses";  and  he  significantly  concludes  that  "He  that  cannot 
write  true  English  without  the  help  of  clerks  of  parish  churches 
will  needs  make  himself  the  father  of  interludes";  and  in  his 
"Groatsworth  of  Wit,"  he  says,  "There  is  an  upstart  Crow 
beautified  with  our  Feathers,  that  with  his  Tyger's  heart 
wrapt  in  a  Player's  hyde,  supposes  he  is  as  wel  able  to  bombast 
out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you,  and  being  an  absolute 
Johannes  factotum,  is  in  his  owne  conceit  the  onely  Shake- 
scene  in  the  Country."  ^ 

The  expression,  "Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  Player's  hyde" 
is  from  the  play  of  "Henry  VL"  Henry  Chettle,  who  pub- 
lished Greene's  book,  apologized  for  this  attack,  but  men- 
tioned no  names.  In  the  apology  he  used  these  words :  — 

I  am  as  sorry  as  if  the  originall  fault  had  been  my  fault,  be- 
cause my  selfe  have  seene  his  desmeanor  no  less  civil!  than  he 
is  excelent  in  the  qualitie  he  professes;  besides,  divers  of  wor- 
ship have  reported  his  uprightnes  of  dealing,  which  argues  his 
honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace  in  writing,  that  aprooves  his 
Art.  2 

This  is  all,  and,  if  it  refers  to  the  actor,  as  so  many  of  his 
admirers  claim,  though  some  deny,  furnishes  very  little  for 
favorable  comment.  All  that  Chettle  had  himself  personally 
noticed  was  the  civil  demeanor  of  the  person  alluded  to,  with 
whom  he  seems  to  have  had  the  slightest  acquaintance;  the 
rest  he  had  heard  reported.  Surely  this  is  faint  praise,  and 
notably  perfunctory;  but  had  it  rung  with  paeans  of  admira- 
tion from  Chettle  it  should  still  have  passed  unnoticed,  for 
Chettle  could  hardly  have  been  much  respected.  Dekker 
thus  introduces  him  to  the  poets  in  Elysium :  — 

In  comes  Chettle  sweating  and  blowing  by  reason  of  his  fatnes; 
to  welcome  whom,  because  he  was  of  olde  acquaintance,  all  rose 

^  Groatszvorth  of  Wit,  n.p.   London,  1629. 

2  Henry  Chettle,  Kind  Heart's  Dream.   London  [1592],  n.d. 

80 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

up,  and  fell  presentlie  on  their  knees  to  drinck  a  health  to  all  the 
lovers  of  Hellicon. 

And  Brandes,  from  whom  this  is  quoted,  remarks:  — 

Elze  has  conjectured,  possibly  with  justice,  that  in  this  puffing 
and  sweating  old  tun  of  flesh,  who  is  so  whimsically  greeted  with 
mock  reverence  by  the  whole  gay  company,  we  have  the  very 
model  from  whom  Shakespeare  drew  his  demigod,  the  immortal 
Sir  John  Falstaff.i 

Nash  is  even  more  bitter,  calling  the  actor  an  "  idiot-art- 
master,"  who  obtained  all  his  learning  in  a  grammar  school, 
and  sneers  at  the  possibility  of  his  "translating  two  penny 
pamphlets  from  the  Italian  without  any  knowledge  even  of 
its  articles."  This  refers  to  the  Italian  plays  which  had  not 
long  before  been  written.  Such  authors,  he  says,  "condemn 
arts  a«  improbable,  contenting  themselves  with  a  little  country 
graiTii.ar  knowledge,  thanking  God  with  that  abscedarie  priest 
in  Lincolnshire,  that  he  never  knew  what  that  Romish,  popish 
Latin  meant."  ^ 

In  1601,  Jonson's  "Poetaster"  was  produced,  in  which 
the  principal  character  of  Crispinus  is  ridiculed  as  Sogliardo 
is  for  his  folly  in  attempting  to  acquire  gentility  by  the  dis- 
play of  a  coat  of  arms.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Jonson's 
satire  in  this  production  is  aimed  at  the  actor.  It  is  too  plainly 
drawn  to  be  doubted.  The  father  of  Crispinus  is  described  as 
"A  man  of  worship,"  which  John  Shakspere's  humble  neigh- 
bors considered  him.  Crispinus  is  uneducated,  and  is  ad- 
vised to  employ  a  tutor  as  he  has  ''  a  canting  coat  of  arms," 
which  unmistakably  identifies  him  with  the  actor,  though 
Fleay  refuses  to  recognize  the  caricature. 

We  now  come  to  the  Ratsey  episode,  as  it  is  denominated 
by  Phillipps,  who  has  printed  it  from  the  original  entered 
for  publication  at  Stationers'  Hall,  May  31,  1605.  It  seems 
to  have  been  written  solely  as  a  vehicle  for  a  lampoon  upon 

1  Brandes,  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  211. 

2  Thomas  Nash,  The  Anatomy  of  Absurdity.  London,  1589. 

81 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  Stratford  actor,  and  gives  an  interesting  view  of  the  status 
of  strolling  players  of  that  time.   It  begins  in  this  wise:  — 

Gamaliell  Ratsey  and  his  company  travailing  up  and  downe 
the  countrey  —  came  by  chance  into  a  inne  where  that  night 
there  harbored  a  company  of  players.^ 

Having  sent  for  several  of  the  principal  ones,  he  had  them 
perform  for  him  and  dismissed  them  with  a  liberal  douceur. 
The  next  morning,  Ratsey,  seemingly  a  dissolute  gentleman 
of  wealth,  sets  out  well  mounted,  and,  overtaking  them,  was 
met  with  obsequious  greetings  which  he  received  contempt- 
uously, bidding  them  "leave  off  their  cringing  and  comple- 
ments," and  compelling  them  to  return  the  money  he  had 
given  them.  Having  done  this  he  complimented  "The  chief- 
est  of  them"  upon  his  presence  upon  the  stage,  and  begins 
his  satire  upon  the  Stratford  actor  in  these  words :  — 

Get  thee  to  London,  for  if  one  man  [Burbage]  were  dead  they 
will  have  much  neede  of  such  a  one  as  thou  art.  There  would 
be  none  in  my  opinion  fitter  than  thyselfe  to  play  his  parts.  My 
conceipt  is  such  of  thee,  that  I  durst  adventure  all  the  mony  in 
my  purse  on  thy  head  to  play  Hamlet  with  him  for  a  wager. 
There  thou  shalt  learne  to  be  frugall,  —  for  players  were  never 
so  thriftie  as  they  are  now  about  London  —  and  to  feede  upon 
all  men,  to  let  none  feede  upon  thee;  to  make  thy  hand  a  stranger 
to  thy  pocket,  thy  hart  slow  to  performe  thy  tongues  promise; 
and  when  thou  feelest  thy  purse  well  lined,  buy  thee  some  place 
or  lordship  in  the  country,  that,  growing  weary  of  playing,  thy 
mony  may  there  bring  thee  to  dignitie  and  reputation;  then  thou 
needest  care  for  no  man,  nor  not  for  them  that  before  made  thee 
prowd  with  speaking  their  words  upon  the  stage. 

Sir,  I  thanke  you,  quoth  the  player,  for  this  good  counsell;  I 
promise  you  I  will  make  use  of  it,  for  I  have  heard,  indeede,  of 
some  that  have  gone  to  London  very  meanly,  and  have  come  in 
time  to  be  exceeding  wealthy. 

And  in  this  presage  and  propheticall  humor  of  mine,  says 
Ratsey,  kneele  downe  —  Rise  up.  Sir  Simon  Two  Shares  and 
a  Halfe;  thou  art  now  one  of  my  knights,  and  the  first  knight 
that  ever  was  player  in  England. 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  325. 

82 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

This  appears  to  have  been  written  not  far  from  the  close 
of  the  Stratford  actor's  theatrical  activity,  and,  with  the 
opinions  of  contemporaries  already  cited,  shows  us  plainly 
how  he  was  known  to  them  at  different  periods,  from  a  few 
years  after  his  advent  to  near  the  close  of  his  career  in  London. 
There  is  a  verisimilitude  about  them  which,  though  possibly 
exaggerated,  stamps  them  as  genuine,  revealing  to  us  the  same 
figure  that  walked  the  streets  of  Stratford  in  early  life,  un- 
lettered, rude,  immoral,  selfish,  —  all  of  which  was  mellowed 
by  a  coarse  natural  wit,  —  a  figure  far  from  agreeable,  and 
which  in  the  later  years  of  his  life  among  his  Stratford  con- 
temporaries was  unrelieved  by  the  grace  of  generosity  or 
solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  others,  but  retained  the  same 
sordid  features  that  pertained  to  the  rude  rustic  who  afore- 
time displayed  his  dramatic  "wit"  in  the  shambles. 

In  1606,  there  was  printed  in  London,  "The  Return  from 
Pernassus,"  a  trilogy  which  had  been  formerly  acted  by 
Cambridge  students.  In  the  first  scene  of  Act  V,  Studioso, 
a  student,  bewails  England's  neglect  of  her  scholars,  and  her 
exaggerated  esteem  of  actors,  and  ends  by  declaring  that,  — 

With  mouthing  words  that  better  wits  have  framed, 
They  purchase  lands,  and  now  Esquiers  are  made. 

To  this,  Philomusus,  lover  of  the  Muse,  replies :  — 

Whatere  they  seeme  being  even  at  the  best, 
They  are  but  sporting  fortunes  scornfull  jest. 

Here  we  have  again  the  familiar  skit  at  the  Stratford 
actor's  unfortunate  purchase  of  a  coat  of  arms  with  "words 
that  better  wits  have  framed."  As  so  many  of  the  words  he 
mouthed  were  from  the  "Shakespeare"  plays,  we  cannot 
wonder  if  the  insinuation  they  carry,  like  a  similar  one  in  the 
Ratsey  episode,  seems  to  some  minds  worthy  of  considera- 
tion. 

It  may  be  replied  that  the  trilogy  is  an  unfortunate  source 
from  which  to  quote,  and  that  it  contains  a  commendation  of 

83 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  actor  of  a  nature  to  show  that  the  Cambridge  students 
beUeved  him  to  be  the  author  of  the  works.  It  might  be  re- 
joined that  beHefs  are  not  admissible  evidence;  but  what 
really  is  this  commendation?  Throughout  the  trilogy  sounds 
an  unmistakable  note  of  contempt  for  actors;  "Adonis"  and 
"Lucrece"  are  mentioned  approvingly.  On  their  title-pages 
was  the  name,  "William  Shakespeare,"  but  this  was  a  matter 
of  common  knowledge,  and  in  no  wise  identified  them  with 
the  Stratford  actor.  In  the  last  part  of  the  trilogy,  however, 
some  of  the  students  masquerade  as  Burbage  and  Kempe, 
two  popular  actors,  who,  to  enliven  the  scene,  boastingly 
declare  that  "few  of  the  university  pens  play  well,"  and  that 
"our  fellow  Shakespeare  puts  them  all  down,  aye,  and  Ben 
Jonson,  too."  Certainly  such  a  remark  in  a  satirical  play  by 
rollicking  students  is  of  no  weight  in  determining  a  question 
of  authorship.  Is  it  in  any  wise  equivalent  to  the  condem- 
natory quotation  which  the  actor's  biographers  ignore,  while 
flaunting  the  commendatory  one  ?  Of  this  the  reader  is  com- 
petent to  judge.  Possibly  he  may  be  interested  to  ascertain, 
if  he  has  not  already  done  so,  what  other  contemporary  and 
friendly  authorities  have  said  to  identify  him  with  the  au- 
thorship of  the  works,  and  we  will  refer  to  "The  Centurie  of 
Prayse,"  from  which  we  have  already  quoted. 

The  "Allusions"  and  supposed  "Allusions,"  beginning  with 
Greene,  Chettle,  and  Nash,  number,  between  1592  and  1624, 
one  hundred  and  nineteen.  The  most  important  we  have  al- 
ready treated.  While  they  refer  to  certain  plays  and  poems 
which  bear  the  name  " Shake-speare "  or  ''Shakespeare"  on 
their  title-pages,  a  name,  as  we  shall  see,  employed  by  several 
unknown  authors  on  similar  works,  some  of  which  alluded  to 
are  still  in  dispute,  not  one  identifies  the  actor  with  the  author 
of  the  plays  or  poems.  That  this  statement  of  non-identity  is 
not  overstrained  is  acknowledged  by  no  less  an  authority  than 
Fleay,  the  author  of  a  life  of  the  actor,  who,  speaking  of  these 
allusions,  declares  that 

84 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

They  consist  almost  entirely  of  slight  references  to  his  pub- 
lished works,  and  have  no  bearing  of  importance  on  his  career. 
Nor,  indeed,  have  we  any  extensive  material  of  any  kind  to  aid 
us  in  this  investigation;  one  source  of  information  which  is 
abundant  for  most  of  his  contemporaries,  being  in  his  case  en- 
tirely absent. 

This  is  a  most  important  admission,  made  by  a  student 
eager  to  find  facts  relating  to  his  subject.  He  continues:  — 

Neither  as  addressed  to  him  by  others,  nor  by  him  to  others, 
do  any  commendatory  verses  exist  in  connection  with  any  of  his 
or  any  other  men's  work  published  in  his  lifetime  —  a  notable 
fact  in  whatever  way  it  may  be  explained.  Nor  can  he  he  traced 
in  any  personal  contact  beyond  a  very  limited  circle^  although  the 
fanciful  might-have-beens,  so  largely  indulged  in  by  his  biographers 
might  at  first  lead  to  an  opposite  conclusion.^ 

This  is  a  precise  and  true  statement,  supported  by  all  the 
evidence  in  existence  respecting  the  actor,  and  just  what  and 
all  that  we  should  expect  of  the  man  as  we  know  him.  But 
Lee,  one  of  the  most  dogmatic  and  unreliable  writers  on  the 
subject  that  has  yet  appeared  to  confuse  and  mislead  the 
casual  reader,  one  who  never  hesitates  to  restate  as  positive 
fact  what  his  predecessors  have  hesitatingly  suggested  as 
possible,  declares  that 

The  scantiness  of  contemporary  records  of  Shakespeare's 
career  has  been  much  exaggerated.  An  investigation  extending 
over  centuries  has  brought  together  a  mass  of  detail  which  far 
exceeds  that  accessible  in  the  case  of  any  other  contemporary 
professional  writer.  Nevertheless,  some  important  links  are 
missing,  and  at  some  critical  points  appeal  to  conjecture  is  in- 
evitable. But  the  fully  ascertained  facts  are  numerous  enough  to 
define  sharply  the  general  direction  that  Shakespeare's  career 
followed.  2 

Perhaps  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  "the  mass  of  detail" 
which  Lee  speaks  of,  based  upon  authentic  records,  or  even 

1  Frederick  Card  Fleay,  J  Chronicle  History  of  the  Life  and  Work  of  William 
Shakespeare,  pp.  73,  74.    New  York,  1886. 

2  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  361. 

8s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

upon  rational  traditions,  during  the  two  centuries  mentioned, 
shrink  into  insignificance  when  subjected  to  critical  judg- 
ment. The  reader  is  assured  that  this  "mass  of  detail"  is  to 
be  found  fully  set  forth  in  this  volume. 

Of  the  "Allusions"  four  have  especially  been  made  the 
theme  of  commentators.  They  have  marshaled  them  before 
us  with  a  display  of  learning  intended  to  silence  all  cavil,  and 
so  often  and  persistently  as  to  awaken  in  us  a  doubt  of  their 
motive,  which  ostensibly  is  to  enlighten,  but  the  result  of 
which  has  been  to  blind  us  to  the  defects  of  a  shaky  thesis. 
Even  that  true  scholar,  Edwin  Reed,  was  betrayed  into  ac- 
cepting one  of  them  as  referring  to  the  author  of  the  plays. 
So  much  stress  has  been  laid  upon  these  particular  allusions, 
and  they  have  been  used  so  triumphantly  to  silence  ques- 
tioners, though  they  really  have  no  true  bearing  upon  the 
question  of  authorship,  that  we  feel  warranted  in  noticing 
them.  This  is  one :  — 

And  there,  though  last  not  least,  is  Action; 
A  gentler  shepheard  may  no  where  be  found, 
Whose  muse,  full  high  of  thought's  invention, 
Doth,  like  himselfe,  heroically  sound. 

Says  Lee :  — 

It  is  hardly  doubtful  that  Spenser  described  Shakespeare  in 
"Colin  Clout's  come  home  againe  (completed  in  1594)  under  the 
name  of  'Action,'  a  familiar  Greek  proper  name  derived  from 
Aeros,  an  eagle." 

It  no  more  seems  to  have  occurred  to  Lee  than  to  his 
predecessors  that  the  name  of  the  Muse  as  well  as  that  of  the 
person  eulogized  should  "heroically  sound."  ^  Is  there  any 
one  of  the  Muses,  or  any  one  in  Greek  mythology,  —  for  the 
author  of  "Colin"  might  select  any  mythical  deity  to  serve 
figuratively  as  an  inspirational  source,  —  whose  name  sounded 
"heroically"  like  that  of  the  actor.?  There  is  not  a  single  one 

^  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  Shaksperian  scholar  White  derives  the 
name  from  Jacques  Pierre,  basing  his  opinion  upon  the  ancient  phonetic  form. 

86 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

that  can  be  so  associated  with  him.  Even  the  name  of  Pallas 
Athene  —  who  is  the  nearest,  since  she  bore  the  spear  — 
does  not  sound  heroically.  Who,  then,  was  intended .?  While 
Bacon  was  at  the  French  Court  it  was  mourning  the  loss  of 
one  of  the  most  beloved  of  the  Pleiade,  Remy  Belleau,  a  truly 
gentle  shepherd,  since  he  had  written  the  "  Bergeries,''  or 
Sheepfolds,  a  pastoral  treating  of  the  loves  of  the  shepherds; 
moreover,  he  was  not  only  a  shining  poet  but  a  splendid 
warrior,  and  such  men  were  spoken  of  as  being  inspired  with 
valor  by  the  goddess  of  war,  Bellona,  who  might  properly  be 
called  his  Muse  whose  name 

Doth  like  himselfe  heroically  sound;  — 

in  fact,  is  pronounced  precisely  like  it  except  that  in  her  case 

the  feminine  terminal  is  necessarily  added. 

That  this  allusion,  which  wholly  fails  to  describe  the  author 

of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  should  have  been  pressed  so 

eagerly  into  the  service  of  partisans  as  a  prop  to  their  cause, 

is  conspicuous  evidence  of  its  weakness.  The  next  two  which 

have  done  yeoman  service  for  a  century,  Lee  himself  has  been 

forced  to  abandon,  though  they  are  still  quoted  approvingly 

by  others,  and  no  doubt  will  continue  to  be  echoed  by  careless 

writers  for  a  generation.  This  is  the  most  familiar:  — 

And  he,  the  man  whom  Nature  selfe  had  made 
To  mock  her  selfe  and  Truth  to  imitate. 
With  kindly  counter  under  mimick  shade, 
Our  pleasant  Willy,  ah!  is  dead  of  late.-^ 

Says  Lee:  "There  is  no  ground  for  assuming  that  Spenser 
referred  figuratively  to  Shakespeare,  when  he  made  Thalia 
deplore  the  recent  death  of  'our  pleasant  Willy.'  The  name 
Willy  was  frequently  used  in  contemporary  literature  as  a 
term  of  familiarity  without  relation  to  the  baptismal  name 
of  the  person  referred  to.  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  addressed 
as  'Willy'  by  some  of  his  elegists";  and  he  concludes  that 
Richard  Tarleton,  "A  comic  actor  'dead  of  late'  in  a  literal 

1  Tears  of  the  Muses.   1591.  Spenser  Folio,  161 1. 

87 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

sense/'  was  the  subject  of  this  "allusion."  He  says  "in  a 
literal  sense"  because  his  predecessors,  in  order  to  account 
for  the  allusion  which  was  written  twenty-five  years  before 
the  actor's  death,  had  assumed  that  "dead  of  late"  was  used 
figuratively,  as  at  that  time  the  actor  had  "probably  retired 
from  literary  work."  The  reason  for  this  abandonment  of  a 
cherished  bit  of  fiction  is  found  in  the  fact  that  an  annotated 
copy  of  the  "Spenser"  Folio  of  1611  disclosed  that  the  term 
"Willy"  was  familiarly  applied  to  Tarleton,  who  was  a  popu- 
lar favorite,  and  to  the  additional  fact  that  he  was  noted  for 
a  popular  song  entitled  "Willy,"  the  music  of  which  is  still 
preserved. 
The  other  allusion  is  this :  — 

But  that  same  gentle  spirit,  from  whose  pen 
Large  streames  of  honnie  and  sweete  nectar  flows  — 
Doth  rather  choose  to  sit  in  idle  cell 
Than  so  himselfe  to  mockerie  to  sell. 

This,  too,  which  furnishes  that  familiar  adjective  "gentle" 
to  the  object  of  the  Stratfordian  adoration,  is  reluctantly 
abandoned.   Says  Lee  again:  — 

Similarly  the  "gentle  spirit,"  who  is  described  by  Spenser  in 
a  later  stanza  as  sitting  "in  idle  cell"  rather  than  turn  his  pen 
to  base  uses,  cannot  be  reasonably  identified  with  Shakespeare.^ 

Of  the  fourth  Lee  jubilantly  exclaims:  — 

At  any  rate  Shakespeare  acknowledged  acquaintance  with 
Spenser's  work  in  a  plain  reference  to  his  "Teares  of  the  Muses" 
(1591)  in  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  (vi,  52-53):  — 

"The  thrice  three  Muses,  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  learning,  late  deceased  in  beggary." 

This  has  even  less  to  recommend  it  than  the  "pleasant 
Willy"  allusion  has.  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  was 
written  as  early  as  1594,  though  it  was  not  registered  for  pub- 

1  A  Life  of  Shakespeare^  p.  80  et  seq.  Cf.  Dictionary  of  National  Biography^ 
sub.  Tarleton. 

88 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

lication  until  October  8,  1600.  Spenser  died  January  16,  1598 ; 
hence  the  only  possible  assumption  is  that  it  was  interpolated 
fully  four  years  after  it  was  written.  This  is  a  wholly  unwar- 
ranted assumption.  But  does  it  describe  Spenser.?  He  was 
always  a  poor  man,  it  is  true,  but  is  it  fair  to  say  that  he 
"died  in  beggary"  when  he  refused,  just  before  he  died,  if 
Drummond  in  his  "  Conversations  with  Ben  Jonson"  is  to  be 
credited,  "twenty  pieces"  sent  him  by  Essex? 

But  we  offer  this  dilemma  to  our  orthodox  friends:  suppose 
we  adopt  their  assumption  that  the  lines  under  discussion 
were  interpolated  late  in  the  year  1600,  when  the  last  act  was 
being  printed,  how  are  we  to  dispose  of  Richard  Hooker,  who 
died  November  2  of  that  year?  Who  represented  learning 
to  a  greater  degree  than  he  of  whom  it  is  said,  "he  stood 
apart";  that  "later"  ages  have  looked  back  to  him  as  "emi- 
nent" even  in  "the  period  of  Spenser,  of  Shake-speare  and 
Bacon"  ?  Hooker  was  a  man  of  indefectible  humility,  wholly 
indifferent  to  money  or  position.  When  visited  on  one  occa- 
sion by  Cranmer,  he  was  found  "  reading  Horace  and  tending 
sheep."  He  had  begged  a  church  living  to  enable  him  to  pursue 
his  benevolent  work,  and  presumably  died  penniless  just  after 
his  house  was  robbed.  Fortunately,  however,  it  turned  out 
that  a  sum  of  money  had  been  saved,  "which  was  not  got  by 
his  care,  much  less  by  the  good  housewifery  of  his  wife,  but 
saved  by  his  trusty  servant,  Thomas  Lane."  ^ 

Hooker's  death  occurring  while  "Midsummer  Night's 
Dream"  was  going  through  the  press,  would  have  been  noted 
before  that  of  any  other  contemporary;  indeed,  it  is  to  "a 
public  calamity  much  talked  of"  that  the  orthodox  ascribe 
the  date  of  composition  of  this  very  play.  Certainly  it  is 
much  more  reasonable  to  give  Hooker  the  credit  of  this  al- 
lusion than  Spenser,  but  we  need  do  neither,  for  to  our  sur- 
prise we  find  that  no  less  an  orthodox  authority  than  Ebs- 
worth  abandons  this  last  Spenser  fiction  in  the  following 

1  Isaac  Walton,  The  Lives  of  Dr.  John  Donne  et  als.,  p.  239.    Boston,  i860. 

89 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

positive  manner:  "The  'Thrice  three  muses'  cannot  have 
been  an  allusion  to  Spenser's  'Tears  of  the  Muses/" 

Upon  such  trivialities  has  a  wholly  fictitious  personality 
been  created  for  the  Stratford  actor.  What  will  Clelia  and 
Thorp  and  Lee,  et  id  genus  omne,  do  if  they  can  no  more  apply 
to  him  the  unctuous  adjectives  of  "pleasant"  and  "gentle," 
and  the  pet  name  of  "Willy"?  They  will  have  left  only 
Greene's  and  Jonson's  description  of  him,  imperfect,  if  you 
please,  but  far  truer  than  those  they  have  imposed  upon 
credulous  readers. 

Mr.  G.  F.  Bates  finds  two  instances  which  he  thinks  suffi- 
cient to  remove  all  doubt  of  the  actor's  authorship,  and  he 
makes  this  comment :  — 

The  Baconians  have  such  an  ingenious  way  of  interpreting 
evidence  to  meet  their  views,  that  it  would  be  both  curious  and 
interesting  to  know  how  they  would  deal  with  these  two  cases.  ^ 

Let  us  gratify  his  curiosity. 

Both  are  from  Thomas  Heywood.  He  quotes  first  these 
familiar  lines :  — 

Millifluous  Shakespeare,  whose  enchanting  Quill 
Commanded  Mirth  and  Passion,  was  but  Will; 

and  then  from  the  "Apology  for  Actors,"  published  in  1612, 
in  which  Heywood  refers  to  the  "  Passionate  Pilgrim,"  first 
pubHshed  in  1599  under  the  name  "Shakespeare,"  by  the 
"Incorrigible  Jaggard,"  as  Lee  calls  him.  In  this  are  two 
poems  written  by  Heywood,  and  in  the  "Apology"  he  says:  — 

I  must  necessarily  insert  a  manifest  injury  done  me  in  that 
worke  by  taking  the  two  Epistles  of  Paris  to  Helen,  and  Helen 
to  Paris,  and  printing  them  —  under  the  name  of  another,  which 
may  put  the  world  in  opinion  I  might  steale  them  from  him  — 
the  author  I  know  much  offended  with  M.  Jaggard,  that  (al- 
together unknown  to  him)  presumed  to  make  so  bold  with  his 
name. 

^  London  Notes  and  Queries ^  vol.  xi,  p.  493.   1903. 
90 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

With  relation  to  these  references  Mr.  Bates  thinks  they 
identify  the  Stratford  actor  as  an  author.  In  the  first  case  we 
have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Heywood  knew  anything  at 
all  about  the  actor's  real  connection  with  the  works  which 
bore  his  name.  His  carelessness  is  strongly  emphasized  by 
Phillipps  in  referring  to  this  very  book,  the  "Passionate 
Pilgrim/-  in  which  he  says:  — 

He  does  not  appear  to  have  examined  the  volume  with  any 
degree  of  care.  Had  he  done  so,  he  would  hardly  have  refrained 
from  enhancing  his  complaint  against  Jaggard  by  observing  that, 
independently  of  the  two  epistles,  the  latter  had  also  appropriated 
five  other  poems  from  the  [Heywood's]  Troia  Britanica.^  . 

He  also  expresses  his  opinion  of  the  actor's  part  in  the 
transaction  in  this  wise :  — 

Although  Heywood  thus  ingeniously  endeavours  to  make  it 
appear  that  his  chief  objection  to  the  piracy  arose  from  a  desire 
to  shield  himself  against  a  charge  of  plagiarism,  it  is  apparent 
that  he  was  highly  incensed  at  the  liberty  that  had  been  taken; 
and  a  new  title-page  to  the  Passionate  Pilgrim  of  1612,  from 
which  Shakespeare's  name  was  withdrawn  was  afterwards 
issued.  There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  this  step  was  taken 
mainly  in  consequence  of  the  remonstrances  of  Heywood  ad- 
dressed to  Shakespeare,  who  may  certainly  have  been  displeased 
at  Jaggard's  proceedings,  but  as  clearly  required  pressure  to 
induce  him  to  act  in  the  matter.  If  the  publisher  would  now  so 
readily  listen  to  Shakespeare's  wishes,  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  he  would  not  have  been  equally  compliant  had  he  been 
expostulated  with  either  at  the  first  appearance  of  the  work  in 
1599,  or  at  any  period  during  the  following  twelve  years  of  its 
circulation.^ 

No,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  he  was  not  displeased, 
for  if  people  wanted  to  exploit  him  as  an  author,  he  had  no 
reason  to  object;  he  was  benefited  by  the  notoriety  such  ad- 
vertising gave  him;  nevertheless,  like  everything  else  known 
of  him,  this  quiet  acceptance  for  twelve  years  of  the  repute 
this  literary  piracy  yielded,  discloses  his  true  character. 

1  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  11,  pp.  296-97.  ^  Ihid.,  vol.  i,  pp.  237-38. 

91 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

"But,"  says  Mr.  W.  E.  Wilson  on  Jonson's  lines  in  1623, 
"To  the  memory  of  my  beloved,  the  author.  Master  William 
Shakespeare,  and  what  he  has  left  us":  "As  Bacon  died  in 
1626,  how  could  the  last  six  lines  refer  to  a  man  who  was  still 
alive?  Here  is  one  of  the  strongest  bits  of  evidence  against 
the  whole  Baconian  theory." 

This  is  no  stranger  than  what  we  have  already  quoted  from 
Jonson,  even  if  subject  to  the  interpretation  given  to  the  lines 
by  Wilson.  Jonson  wrote  them  in  1623  to  be  attached  to 
what  he  knew  to  be  but  a  part  of  the  so-called  "Shakespeare" 
plays;  all,  however,  which  their  author,  who  had  so  tragically 
finished  his  public  career,  chose  to  leave,  and  had  "left,"  to 
the  world,  to  which  he  was  figuratively  regarded  by  himself 
and  others  as  dead.  But  had  this  not  been  the  case  a  suffi- 
cient answer  would  be  that  Jonson  was  only  carrying  out  the 
futile  task  which  had  been  set  him  of  sustaining  the  pseudo- 
nymity  of  the  plays,  so  important  to  Bacon,  whose  great 
philosophical  works  were  then  going  through  the  press.  If 
this  view  is  acceptable,  we  are  willing,  in  order  to  show  how 
worthless  such  utterances  are,  to  accept  Mr.  Wilson's  own 
witness,  Leonard  Digges,  who  also  wrote  a  eulogy  for  the 
Folio,  too  rankly  false  to  pass  even  its  complaisant  censor. 
We  have  shown  the  character  of  Elizabethan  eulogy  perhaps 
enough  already,  but  this  one  is  worth  noting,  and  should  be 
sufficient  to  dispose  of  such  effusions  as  evidence :  — 

Next  Nature  onely  helpt  him,  for  looke  thorow 

This  whole  booke,  thou  shalt  find  he  doth  not  borrow 

One  phrase  from  Greekes,  nor  Latines  imitate, 

Nor  once  from  vulgar  languages  translate, 

Nor  plagiari-like  from  others  gleane, 

Nor  begges  he  from  each  witty  friend  a  scene. 

We  will  not  charge  Digges  with  wittingly  falsifying  to  this 
extent,  choosing  rather  to  let  him  off  on  the  score  of  being 
ignorant  of  the  works  in  question.  Mr.  Wilson  argues  that 
inasmuch  as  the  eulogy  of  Digges,  which  he  admits  was  wholly 

92 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

false,  was  excluded  from  the  Folio,  it  is  good  evidence  that 
Jonson's  eulogy  was  true.  Such  logic  is  unworthy  of  attention.^ 
After  the  actor's  death  a  monument  was  erected  to  him  at 
Stratford  by  some  one  unknown,  and  on  it  was  placed  an 
inscription  pointing  to  him  as  an  author.  This  for  a  long  time 
seemed  sufficient  evidence,  and  when  the  lines  on  the  portrait, 
and  eulogy  by  Jonson  were  published  in  1623,  it  was  but 
reasonable  for  those  who  did  not  know  otherwise  to  suppose 
that  the  author  was  reliable  authority,  and  so  by  many  he  is 
regarded  still  as  the  one  witness  whose  testimony  should  pass 
unchallenged,  both  as  to  the  fidelity  of  the  portrait  to  life,  and 
the  authorship  of  the  works.  We  believe  that  the  reader,  after 
weighing  the  evidence  here  adduced,  will  not  accept  him  as  a 
reliable  witness  for  the  defendant.  Of  course,  the  monument, 
and  every  mention  of  the  plays,  Stratfordians  cite  as  evidence 
of  authorship  by  the  Stratford  actor.  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  pre- 
sents the  typical  argument  advanced  in  this  jaunty  manner: — 

When  contemporaries  of  Shakespeare  wrote  about  Shake- 
speare's plays  and  poems,  they  had  no  reason  to  add,  "We  mean 
the  plays  and  poems  of  Mr.  William  Shakespeare  of  My  Lord 
of  Leicester's  servants  or  of  the  King's  servants."  There  was 
no  other  William  Shakespeare  in  the  public  eye.  Everyone  con- 
cerned with  the  stage  and  literature  knew  well  who  William 
Shak  —  any  spelling  you  please  —  was.  If  to-day  we  wrote  of 
our  dramatic  poets,  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Mr.  Shaw,  we  would 
not  waste  time  on  saying  what  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Mr.  Shaw 


This  sounds  well,  and  is  a  plausible  argument  in  the  case, 
but  it  presupposes  conditions  which  never  existed.  Up  to 
1598,  not  a  single  play  had  been  printed  which  bore  the  actor's 
name.  Says  Lee:  "The  playhouse  authorities  deprecated  the 
publishing  of  plays  in  the  belief  that  their  dissemination  in 
print  was  injurious  to  the  receipts  of  the  theatre."  ^ 

1  London  Notes  and  Queries,  vol.  xii,  p.  35.   1903- 

2  Cornhill  Magazine,  September,  1912. 

3  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  48. 

93 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  actor  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  in  the  pubUc  eye, 
and  "every  one  concerned  with  the  stage  and  literature" 
could  not  have  known  him  to  be  a  dramatic  author.  The 
citation  of  Galsworthy  and  Shaw,  who  are  very  much  in  the 
public  eye,  and  well  known  as  authors,  seems  unfortunate. 

Very  few  of  his  contemporaries  seem  to  have  known  him. 
Of  these,  Jonson  is  far  more  important  than  all  of  them 
combined.  The  reader  has  witnessed  the  value  of  his  evidence. 
It  is  certainly  strange,  as  all  his  biographers  lament,  that  the 
actor,  if  he  were  an  author,  did  not  in  some  way  indicate  his 
authorship.  There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  conceal  it; 
on  the  contrary,  every  inducement  why  he  should  not.  We 
cannot  conceive  of  a  needy  young  man  coming  to  London 
eager  for  success,  with  poems  and  plays  "in  his  pocket,"  as 
has  been  so  ridiculously  claimed,  with  no  desire  to  be  known, 
especially  if  his  work  found  favor  with  theatrical  managers 
and  publishers.  Other  literary  contemporaries,  Heywood, 
Drayton,  Nash,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  and  others,  who  were 
in  the  public  eye,  were  known  and  spoken  of  as  authors  of  the 
works  they  wrote.  No,  William  Shakspere,  the  actor,  was  but 
one  of  the  "men  players"  and  "deserving  men,"  as  Cuthbert 
Burbage  called  him  in  1635  in  his  petition  to  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  and  others.  If  he  had  known  him  as  the  author 
of  the  plays  so  important  to  the  theater,  and  a  poetic  genius, 
it  would  seem  that  he  would  have  thought  to  augment  the 
weight  of  his  petition  by  giving  him  a  more  imposing  designa- 
tion. It  is  curious,  also,  to  note  that  this  very  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke is  the  one  whom  the  actor's  biographers  identify  with 
the  mysterious  "Mr.  W.  H."  of  the  "Sonnets,"  and  an  inti- 
mate friend  of  the  actor.  If  this  were  true,  can  we  imagine 
Burbage  using  such  terms  as  one  of  the  "men  players"  and 
"deserving  men,"  if  he  had  been  the  author  of  "Hamlet" 
and  the  "Sonnets"  and  my  lord's  familiar  friend? 

But  the  most  important  bit  of  contemporary  evidence  of 
the  insignificance  of  the  actor  is  afforded  by  the  diary  of  John 

94 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Manningham.  Manningham  was  a  wealthy  man  of  the  Inns 
of  Court,  acquainted  with  the  leading  men  of  his  time,  and  a 
conservator  of  the  gossip  afloat  in  the  metropolis.  Had  the 
actor  been  patronized  at  court,  or  by  the  men  about  him,  as 
his  biographers  would  have  the  world  believe,  Manningham 
would  have  been  the  first  to  record  it  in  his  diary.  In  the 
scandalous  story  concerning  the  actor  already  quoted,  Man- 
ningham speaks  of  Shakspere  and  Burbage,  and,  it  will  be 
remembered,  closes  his  entry  with  the  words,  "Shakespeare's 
name,  William." 

This  was  all  he  knew  of  this  obscure  actor;  his  name  was 
"William."  Can  we  conceive  of  a  diarist  ending  an  anecdote 
about  the  immortal  Washington  when  he  was  at  the  height  of 
his  fame  with  the  information  that  his  name  was  George? 
This  shows  that  he  knew  nothing  about  the  actor,  and  gath- 
ered from  his  informant  that  his  name  was  William.  This 
lack  of  knowledge  of  the  "man  player,"  William,  is  empha- 
sized earlier  in  his  diary  when  he  writes :  — 

Febr.  1601.  At  our  feast  wee  had  a  play  called  "Twelve  Night, 
or  What  you  Will,"  much  like  the  Commedy  of  Errores,  or 
Menechme  in  Plautus,  but  most  like  and  neere  to  that  in  Ital- 
ian called  Inganni.^ 

He  then  describes  it,  but  no  mention  is  made  of  the  actor, 
who  we  have  been  told  by  his  biographers,  "probably"  took 
part  in  the  performance.  Had  he  made  any  impression  upon 
Manningham,  or  had  Manningham  known  that  the  actor  was 
the  author  of  the  play,  —  and  he  was  one  of  the  best-in- 
formed men  in  London,  —  he  would  have  been  sure  to  have 
recorded  it;  it  was  just  such  an  item  as  he  wanted.  But  there 
were  other  enterprising  diarists  of  that  period,  and  not  one 
has  mentioned  the  actor,  nor  when  he  died  was  it  noticed, 
nor  was  a  single  elegy  written  about  him,  although  elegists 
were  as  plentiful  and  clamorous  when  occasion  offered  as  rooks 
at  even-song.  The  elegies  came  when  Jaggard  wanted  them  to 

1  Diary  of  John  Manningham,  p.  18.  Westminster,  1868. 

95 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

sell  his  "Folio"  seven  years  later,  and  have  done  more  to 
associate  the  actor's  name  with  the  works  than  anything  else ; 
yet  it  is  about  certain  that  those  who  wrote  them  knew  little, 
if  anything,  about  him. 

But  what  shall  we  think  of  this  from  the  first  Scene  of 
Act  V  of  "As  You  Like  It,"  first  printed  in  the  Folio  of  1623, 
though  performed  several  years  earlier? 

To  Clowne  and  Audrie  enter  William. 

Clo.  It  is  meat,  and  drinke  to  me  to  see  a  clowne  by  my  troth,  we 
that  have  good  wits,  have  much  to  answer  for;  we  shall  be  flouting; 
we  cannot  hold. 
Will.  Good  ev'n,  Audrey. 
Aud.  God  ye  good  ev'n,  William. 
Will.  And  good  ev'n  to  you  sir.    {removing  his  hat.) 
Clo.  Good  ev'n  gentle  friend.      Cover  thy  head;   cover  thy   head; 
Nay  prethee  bee  cover'd.   How  olde  are  you,  Friend."* 
Will.  Five  and  twentie.  Sir. 

Clo.  A  ripe  age;  Is  thy  name  William.? 
Will.  William,  Sir. 

Clo.  A  f aire  name.   Was't  borne  i'  the  Forrest  here?^ 
Will.  I  Sir,  I  thanke  God. 
Clo.  Thanke  God;  A  good  answer;  Art  rich.? 
Will.  'Faith  Sir,  so,  so. 
Clo.  So,  so,  is  very  good,  very  good,  very  excellent  good;  and  yet  It  is 

not,  it  is  but  so,  so;  Art  thou  wise? 
Will.  I  Sir,  I  have  a  prettie  wit. 

Clo.  Why,  thou  saist  well.   I  do  now  remember  a  saying:  The  Foole 
doth  thinke  he  is  wise  but  the  wise  man  knowes  himselfe  to  be  a 
Foole  —  You  do  love  this  maid  ? 
Will.  I  do  Sir. 

Clo.  Give  me  vour  hand:  art  thou  learned.? 
Will.  No  Sir. 

Does  this  refer  to  the  actor?  Mr.  Lawrence  calls  attention 
to  the  ejaculation  "Thank  God,"  the  same  used  by  Sogliardo 
in  Ben  Jonson's  play,  which  he  thinks  was  a  characteristic 
expression  of  the  Stratford  actor;  also  to  the  questions,  "Art 
thou  rich?"  and  the  reply,  "So  so,"  as  he  was  not  rich  in  any 
true  sense,  and,  "Art  thou  learned?"  as  well  as  the  phrase, 

1  The  Forest  of  Arden. 

96 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

"Pretty  wit,"  so  often  applied  to  the  actor,  and  the  term 
"gentle"  addressed  to  him,  as  implying  that  he  possessed  the 
heraldic  insignia  of  a  gentleman.  There  might  be  a  difficulty 
in  identifying  the  actor  with  the  character  of  William,  did  we 
reflect  that  he  must  have  known  that  it  referred  to  him  if  it 
were  in  the  play,  and  he  acted  in  it ;  but  this  difficulty  vanishes 
when  we  remember  his  biographers'  portrayal  of  him;  be- 
sides, there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  acted  in  it.  Of  course 
it  might  be  replied  that  Somers,  Henry  the  Eighth's  fool,  was 
called  Will,  but  this  would  be  too  far-fetched  to  serve  as  a 
reasonable  objection. 

THE    QUARTOS 

To  acquire  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  status  of  Shaksperian 
criticism,  one  should  study  the  Quartos  in  connection  with  the 
Folios.  Facsimiles  of  these  have  been  reproduced  by  photo- 
lithography. They  were  originally  printed  for  popular  use. 
These  Quartos  ^  have  been  the  cause  of  endless  controversy. 
But  thirteen  plays  in  the  Folio  bearing  the  actor's  name  were 
published  in  quarto  during  his  life.  These  were:  — 


1598 

1603-04 

Love's  Labours  Lost 

Hamlet 

1600 

1608 

Henry  IV 

Richard  II 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream 

Lear 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing 

Merchant  of  Venice 

1609 

Troiius  and  Cressida 

1602 

Pericles 

Richard  III 

Romeo  and  Juliet  (Undated. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 

Most  copies  anonymous.) 

These  had  been  preceded  by  the  following  anonymous 
Quartos :  — 

^  The  Quartos  were  originally  sold  for  a  few  pennies;  a  copy  of  the  rarest 
of  them  was  priced  on  a  recent  catalogue  at  five  hundred  pounds. 

97 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


I59I 

The  Troublesome   Reign   of   King 
John 

1597 
Richard  II 
Richard  III 

1594 
Taming  of  a  Shrew 
The  Contention,  ist  part  (2d  part 
of  Henry  VI) 

1598 
Henry  IV  (ist  part) 
Romeo  and  Juliet  (2d  Ed.) 
Famous  Victories 
Henry  V 

1595 
True  Tragedy  (3d  part  Henry  VI) 
Romeo  and  Juliet 

1600 
Titus  Andronicus 

Many  of  these  plays,  had  they  not  been  collected  and  pub- 
lished together  at  the  right  moment,  would  be  masquerading 
to-day  under  the  names  of  men  who  never  knew  them,  for 
our  modern  oracles  have  taken  high-handed  liberties  in  ac- 
cording unclaimed  literary  property  to  whomsoever  they 
would.  How  could  they  do  otherwise?  Working  under 
limitations  which  restricted  them  to  the  narrowest  fields  of 
thought,  they  have  done  as  well  as  we  ought  to  expect.  What 
different  results  would  have  been  accomplished,  could  the 
one  to  whom  they  have  devoted  their  energies  been  a  man 
proficient  in  the  learning  of  his  day;  wise  in  its  use;  noble 
in  his  life;  a  literary  laborer;  and,  especially,  known  as  such 
early  enough  to  have  been  the  author  of  "The  Contention," 
the  "old"  "Henry  VI,"  or  the  "old"  "Hamlet,"  and  other 
"old"  plays  which  they  have  been  forced,  by  the  limitations 
which  have  constrained  them,  to  assign  to  incapable  men,  who 
had  a  modicum  of  learning,  and  scribbled  early  enough  to 
have  them  foisted  upon  them  without  raising  the  question  of 
alibi. 

Does  any  one  doubt,  who  has  read  these  little  Quartos, 
that  had  Ben  Jonson,  for  instance,  been  the  son  of  John 
Shakspere,  your  Stratfordian  devotee  would  contend  with 
much  flourish  of  scholarship  that  they  were  the  immature 
works  of  a  young  author,  pieces  of  his  dead  self  on  which  he 
climbed  to  higher  things,  who,  later,  revised  and  improved; 

98 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

in  other  words,  made  them  what  they  are  to-day?  Probably 
not;  nor  would  it  be  necessary  for  Robertson,  Lee,  and  other 
partisans,  who  have  seen  the  fatal  weakness  of  their  prede- 
cessors, to  contend  that  the  wide  knowledge  displayed  in  the 
plays  has  been  misunderstood  hitherto,  and  that  it  is  no  more 
than  what  an  unlearned  but  fairly  bright  man  might  have 
acquired  from  the  common  stock  of  learning  of  his  time,  a 
theory  disproved  by  history  and  experience. 

THE    FOLIOS 

Among  the  mass  of  plays  which  were  in  existence  when 
Heminge  and  Condell  are  supposed  to  have  collected  those 
published  in  the  First  Folio  of  1623,  it  is  a  pregnant  question, 
still  mooted,  which  of  them  were  or  were  not  written  by  the 
author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works.  The  first  appearance 
of  the  name,  Shakespeare,  appears  in  the  dedication  to 
Southampton  of  the  "Venus  and  Adonis,"  "The  first  heir  of 
my  invention,"  in  1593,  which  White  assumes  the  actor  had 
about  him  when  he  left  Stratford.  He  says,  "With  *  Venus 
and  Adonis'  written,  if  nothing  else,  —  hut  I  think  it  not 
unlikely  a  play,  —  Shakespeare  went  to  London  and  sought 
a  patron."  ^  How  such  an  assumption  can  be  reconciled  with 
the  personality  of  the  man  whom  he  is  forced  to  describe,  as 
all  his  biographers  have  been,  must  be  left  to  the  reader  to 
decide.  But  he  goes  farther,  and  buttresses  this  assumption 
with  another ;  the  "  natural  inclination  to  poetry  ( .^)  and  act- 
ing which  Aubrey  tells  us  he  possessed,  had  been  stimulated 
by  the  frequent  visits  of  companies  of  players  to  Stratford." 
It  may  seem  to  "literary  antiquaries"  difficult  to  identify 
the  divine  afflatus  which  inspired  the  "Venus  and  Adonis" 
with  anything  displayed  before  leaving  Stratford,  yet  Collins 
and  some  others  seem  to  find  it  easy.  Is  it  possible  that  the 
play,  which  White  and  Collins  assume  he  carried  with  "Venus 
and  Adonis"  to  London,  was  "Hamlet,"  the  greatest  of  the 

^  White,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  p.  xlix. 

99 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

plays,  or  "Titus  Andronicus,"  or  "Pericles,"  or  several 
others  which  commentators  have  assumed  were  his  earliest 
works,  because  of  their  display  of  immaturity?  The  refuge 
of  the  earlier  biographers  was  in  the  assumption  of  the  exist- 
ence of  two  plays  of  the  same  name,  the  earlier  one  being  by 
some  unknown  author;  but  our  later  critics,  since  this  position 
has  become  untenable,  think  it  wise  to  assume  that  the  un- 
trained genius  of  the  actor  enabled  him  to  produce  great 
poems  and  plays  "  saturated  with  learning,"  as  Furnivall  says, 
while  leading  the  life  which  his  biographers  ascribe  to  him. 
In  any  case  the  admission  of  the  actor's  early  authorship  is 
fatal. 

The  next  year  after  the  appearance  of  "Venus  and  Adonis  " ; 
that  is,  in  1594,  "Lucrece"  was  published  with  a  dedication 
also  signed,  "William  Shakespeare."  Up  to  the  time  of  these 
poems  nothing  had  been  published  which  connected  the  name 
"Shakespeare"  with  its  authorship,  and  the  first  allusion  to 
the  name  as  that  of  an  author  occurs  in  this  year.^  A  number 
of  plays,  however,  had  been  acted  upon  the  stage  previous  to 
this  date,  several  being  among  those  printed  in  the  Folio  of 
1623,  which  since  then  has  been  the  sole  authority  for  their 
authorship.  This  authority  has  been  accepted  because  the 
editors,  Heminge  and  CondeU,  were  Shakspere's  fellow  actors, 
and  supposed  to  have  possessed  as  well  as  anybody,  except 
perhaps  Henslowe,  theatrical  manager  and  buyer  of  plays, 
a  knowledge  of  the  authorship  of  the  works  they  claimed  to 
have  collected  "to  procure  his  orphanes  guardians,"  and  "to 
keepe  the  memory  of  so  worthy  a  friend  and  fellow  alive." 

The  naivete  with  which  they  declare  their  unselfish  de- 
votion to  these  ends  is  touching;  at  the  same  time  they  advise 
prospective  purchasers  of  the  book,  "him  that  can  but  spell 
—  to  read  and  censure";  but  to  "buy  it  first."  This  is  more 
businesslike,  if  less  pathetic,  and  when  we  find  that  some  of 

1  Willohie  His  Avis  a,  London,  1594;  reprint,  Charies  Hughes,  p.  15,  London, 
1904. 

100 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  most  appealing  gems  of  the  preface  upon  which  biogra- 
phers have  so  sympathetically  animadverted  were  in  the  style 
of  Jonson,  who,  Steevens  advises  us,  wrote  the  entire  preface, 
as  well  as  the  lines  to  the  actor's  memory,  repeating  in  it 
some  of  his  familiar  expressions,  the  fervor  of  our  emotion 
subsides,  and  we  are  disposed  to  read  it  more  carefully.  The 
play  editors  by  their  mouthpiece  first  say  that  they  have  be- 
stowed great  "care  and  pains"  in  "collecting"  the  plays,  and 
later  they  make  this  puzzling  admission :  "  His  mind  and  hand 
went  together,  and  what  he  thought  he  uttered  with  that 
easiness  that  we  have  scarce  received  from  him  a  blot  in  his 
papers,"  which  implies  that  the  manuscripts  were  in  his  own 
handwriting,  and  that  they  had  received  them  from  him.  If 
this  is  true  the  plays  were  all  printed  from  the  original  manu- 
scripts, and  not  from  the  Quartos  published  earlier,  which  the 
preface  tells  us  were  "maimed  and  deformed  by  the  frauds 
and  stealthes  of  injurious  imposters,"  while  the  new  Folio 
exposed  them  to  view  "perfect  in  their  limbes,"  and  "abso- 
lute in  their  numbers  as  he  conceived  them."  ^  Yet  Pope  says 
that  "the  Folio,  as  well  as  the  Quartos,  was  printed — at  least 
partly — from  no  better  copies  than  the  Prompter  s  Book,  or 
Piece-meal  Parts,  written  out  for  the  use  of  the  actors;  for  in 
some  places  their  very  names  are  thro'  carelessness  set  down 
instead  of  the  PersoncB  Dramatis,  as  enter  Claudio  and  Jack 
Wilson  instead  of  Balthasar."  ^ 

These  statements  cannot  be  satisfactorily  reconciled.  The 
fact  is  that  many  of  these  plays  were  really  printed  from  the , 
"maimed  and  deformed"  Quartos.  The  truth  of  the  "blot" 
story,  which,  by  the  way,  is  but  a  repetition  of  the  gossip  of 
players  which  Jonson  had  already  related,  is  effectually  dis- 
posed of  by  a  glance  at  the  actor's  signatures.  What  the  play- 
ers saw,  if  the  story  were  true,  must  have  been  the  scrivener's 
copies.    Perhaps  the  best  way  to  reconcile  these  statements 

1  Folio,  1623.  Address  of  Heminge  and  Condell. 

2  Pope,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  xvii.  London,  1725. 

lOI 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

is  to  regard  them  either  as  the  verbose  elements  of  an  adver- 
tisement, written  after  the  style  of  the  professional  show- 
man, careless  of  precise  verities  if  they  but  serve  to  stimulate 
patronage,  or  more  or  less  veiled  statements  of  facts  known 
to  the  writer  of  the  preface. 

But  how  were  Heminge  and  Condell  sure  of  the  authorship 
of  the  plays  they  had  collected,  or  that  their  collection  was 
complete?  It  is  wholly  improbable  that  the  actor,  with  his 
keen  eye  to  property  rights,  would  have  given  them  manu- 
scripts possessing  a  considerable  money  value  to  use  as  they 
pleased,  and  certainly  his  daughters,  whom  his  biographers 
like  to  represent  as  having  inherited  their  father's  business 
shrewdness,  would  not  have  done  so.  There  is  nothing  to 
show  that  they  were  sure  of  either,  or  solicitous  about  being 
so.  Lee  says  that  they  "were  nominally  responsible  for  the 
venture,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  a  small  syn- 
dicate of  printers  and  publishers,  who  undertook  all  pecuni- 
ary responsibility.  Chief  of  the  syndicate  was  William  Jag- 
gard  —  the  piratical  publisher.  In  1613,  he  had  extended  his 
business  by  purchasing  the  stock  and  rights  of  a  rival  pirate, 
James  Roberts."  ^  If  we  adopt  this  statement,  and  we  do  not, 
as  it  is  purely  imaginative,  except  the  purchase  by  Jaggard  of 
Roberts,  which  exhibits  him  as  a  growing  and  enterprising 
publisher,  we  get  no  clearer  view  of  the  conditions  surround- 
ing the  production  of  the  Folio,  and  still  realize  the  perplexing 
character  of  the  preface;  but  we  should  not  hold  Heminge 
and  Condell  responsible  for  this.  Their  part  in  the  work  was 
merely  nominal.  Had  they  initiated  it  and  gathered  the  manu- 
scripts for  the  benefit  of  the  actor's  orphans,  and  to  keep  his 
name  alive,  as  Phillipps  and  others  have  believed,  too  great 
praise  could  not  be  accorded  them;  but  this,  it  is  evident,  they 
did  not  do.  Even  the  "Epistle  Dedicatorie"  is  a  translation 
from  the  preface  to  Pliny's  "Natural  Historic";  strong  evi- 
dence of  their  irresponsibility  for  the  work.   Certainly  some 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  303. 
102 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

one  was  responsible  for  it,  and  for  the  large  additions  to  some 
of  the  plays,  as  well  as  those  hitherto  unknown.  The  financial 
responsibility,  too,  was  great.  The  very  limited  demand  for 
such  a  work  would  have  deterred  any  publisher  from  under- 
taking it  without  an  adequate  subscription  list,  or  guarantee 
against  loss;  besides,  it  was  evidently  hurried  through  the 
press  at  almost  reckless  cost,  which  no  prudent  publisher 
would  have  done.  This  is  shown  by  the  signatures  which  were 
the  work  of  different  publishing  houses,  and  we  can  but  be- 
lieve that  some  one  was  behind  the  undertaking  pushing  it 
forward  with  feverish  haste,  disregardful  of  the  cost.  Steevens 
states  that  the  edition  of  the  book  was  limited  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty  copies,  and  Lee  that  the  price  of  it  was  but  one  pound. 
It  is  now  believed  that  five  hundred  copies  were  printed.  We 
may  well  pause  to  inquire  who  was  financially  responsible 
for  the  Folio.?  We  cannot  reasonably  believe  that  Jaggard 
and  Company  were.  It  is  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
it  was  the  man  who  reveals  so  evidently  to  us  his  interest  in 
the  works  by  the  additions  made  to  them,  whose  style  is 
unquestionably  that  of  their  original  author,  and  who  added 
to  the  last  Quartos  printed  from  1619  to  1622,  as  follows:  to 
the  "Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  1081  lines,  and  rewrote  por- 
tions of  the  text;  to  "Henry  V/  (part  2),  1139  new  lines,  a 
new  title,  and  emended  2000  lines ;  to  part  3  of  the  same  pla}', 
906  new  lines,  and  a  new  title ;  to  "  King  John, "  1 100  new  lines, 
and  a  new  scene;  to  "Richard  III,"  193  new  lines,  and 
emended  nearly  2000  more;  to  "Othello,"  160  new  lines,  and 
alterations  in  the  text.  In  any  case,  we  cannot  accept  the 
terms  applied  to  Heminge  and  Condell  by  the  editor  of  the 
Cambridge  edition  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  who  accuses 
them  not  only  of  making  false  statements,  but  calls  them 
"unscrupulous,"  "discredited,"  "knaves,"  and  "imposters"; 
rather  an  unnecessary  display  of  heat,  even  by  the  editor  of 
the  Canon,  at  loss  of  support  for  his  unfortunate  postulate. 
Though  Lee  says  that  "as  a  specimen  of  typography  the 

103 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

First  Folio  is  not  to  be  commended  —  the  misprints  are 
numerous,  and  are  especially  conspicuous  in  the  pagination," 
Mr.  Smedley  as  plainly  asserts  that  it  "will  be  found  to  be 
one  of  the  most  perfect  examples  of  the  printer's  art  extant, 
because  no  work  has  been  produced  under  such  difficult  con- 
ditions for  the  printer.  —  The  mispaginations  are  all  inten- 
tional and  have  cryptic  meanings";  and  he  calls  attention 
especially  to  the  second  book  of  Bacon's  "Advancement  of 
Learning"  as  a  conspicuous  example  of  intentional  mispagina- 
tion:  "30  is  numbered  33,  from  31  to  70  the  numbering  is  cor- 
rect, and  then  the  leaves  are  numbered  as  follows :  70,  70,  72, 
74,  73,  74,  75,  69, 11,  78,  79,  80,  ^^,  74,  74,  69,  69,  82,  87,  79, 
89,  91";  and  so  on  to  the  end.  It  is  impossible  to  attribute 
this  mispagination  to  the  printer's  carelessness."  ^ 

Up  to  the  date  of  the  Folio,  but  twenty  of  the  plays  it  con- 
tained had  been  published.  The  plays  contained  in  the  Folio 
are  as  follows :  — 

"Romeo  and  Juliet";  "Love's  Labours  Lost";  "I  and  II 
King  Henry  IV";  "Much  Ado  about  Nothing";  "Merchant 
of  Venice";  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream";  and  "Troilus 
and  Cressida."  These  had  been  printed  in  quarto  form,  and 
appear  in  the  Folio  with  but  few  changes. 

"The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona" ;  " III  King  Henry  VI " ; 
"Comedy  of  Errors";  "All's  Well  that  Ends  Well";  "As  You 
Like  It";  "Twelfth  Night";  "Measure  for  Measure";  "An- 
tony and  Cleopatra";  "Macbeth";  "Cymbeline";  "Winter's 
Tale";  "Julius  Caesar";  and  "The  Tempest."  These  had  not 
been  printed. 

"King  John";  "I  and  II  King  Heniy  VI";  "Taming  of 
the  Shrew";  "King  Richard  11"  and  "King  Richard  III"; 
"King  Henry  V";  "Titus  Andronicus";  "Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor";  "Hamlet";  "King  Lear";  "Othello."  These  were 
printed  except  the  last  during  the  actor's  life,  but  appear 
in  the  Folio  much  changed.    "Coriolanus,"  first  mentioned 

*  William  T.  Smedley,  The  Mystery  of  Francis  Bacon,  p.  123.  London,  191 2. 

104 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

in  an  elegy  to  Burbage  in  1619,  "Timon  of  Athens,"  and 
"King  Henry  VHI"  appeared  first  in  the  Folio. 

But  there  were  other  plays  not  in  the  Canon  which  bore  the 
same  evidence  of  having  been  written  by  the  author  of  those 
which  it  included,  and  one  at  least  was  admitted  to  it ;  namely, 
"Titus  Andronicus,"  which  has  been  rejected  by  many  of  the 
critics.  Anent  this,  Phillipps  remarks  that  if  we  do  not  ac- 
cept the  authority  of  the  editors  of  the  Folio,  "we  shall  be 
launched  on  a  sea  with  a  chart  in  which  are  unmarked  perilous 
quicksands  of  intuitive  opinions.  Especially  is  the  vessel  it- 
self in  danger  if  it  touches  the  insidious  bank  raised  up  from 
doubts  on  the  authenticity  of  'Titus  Andronicus ' " ;  ^  and  he 
makes  an  excellent  plea  in  its  favor;  but  others  have  made 
quite  as  good  ones  against  it,  and  the  matter  is  still  unsettled. 
Later,  Phillipps  changed  his  mind  and  said,  "I  do  not  really 
believe  that  Shakespeare  wrote  a  single  line  of  it."  ^ 

Enough  has  been  said  to  give  a  fairly  clear  idea  of  the  Folio. 
The  actor,  as  far  as  known,  was  never  identified  with  any  of 
the  plays  it  contains  except  by  hearsay,  and  by  the  appear- 
ance of  the  name  "William  Shake-speare,"  or  "  Shakespeare" ; 
"W.  Sh."  or  "W.S."  on  the  title-pages  of  several  Quartos, 
and  subsequently  of  the  name  on  that  of  the  Folio.  It  is  a 
striking  fact  that  this  name  is  not  found  in  the  Stationers' 
Register,  but  a  more  remarkable  one  that  it  is  not  found  in  a 
vitally  interesting  record,  or  diary,  that  still  survives,  in  which, 
had  he  been  an  author  or  playwright,  his  name  should  cer- 
tainly have  appeared.  This  diary  is  so  important  that  it 
demands  our  especial  attention. 

henslowe's  diary 

Philip  Henslowe,  to  whom  allusion  has  been  made,  was 
a  theatrical  proprietor  and  patron  of  playwrights.  During 
the  most  active  period  of  the  Stratford  actor's  career,  from 

1  Phillipps,  Outlines y  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  293. 

2  Phillipps,  Memoranda^  p.  76.  Brighton,  1879. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

1 591  to  1609,  he  kept  a  record  of  his  transactions  with  these 
playwrights.  This  "Diary,"  so-called,  was  found  in  1790  by 
Malone  at  Dulwich  College,  founded  by  AUeyn,  a  partner 
of  Henslowe,  and  has  since  been  printed.^  It  is  of  a  most 
interesting  character,  since  in  it  appears  the  name  of  nearly 
every  dramatic  writer  of  any  note,  with  the  signatures  and 
handwriting  of  many,  and,  most  important  of  all,  the  titles 
of  the  plays  which  were  written  for,  or  purchased  by  him. 
Among  these  are  many  of  the  plays  printed  in  the  Folio,  but 
in  the  "Diary"  we  look  in  vain  for  the  Stratford  actor's  name, 
which  causes  Furness  sadly  to  remark,  "Where  the  names  of 
nearly  all  the  dramatic  poets  of  the  age  are  to  be  frequently 
found,  we  might  certainly  count  on  finding  that  of  Shake- 
speare, but  the  shadow  in  which  Shakespeare's  early  life  was 
spent  envelopes  him  here  too,  and  his  name  is  not  met  with 
in  any  part  of  the  manuscript";  ^  yet  Phillipps  remarks  that 
for  a  considerable  period  the  actor  "  had  written  all  his  dramas 
for  Henslowe."  ^  If  so,  why  did  not  Henslowe  mention  the 
name  of  the  author  of  these  plays  as  he  did  in  other  cases? 
No  wonder  that  the  actor's  biographers  have  been  put  to 
their  wits'  end  to  give  some  plausible  reason,  and  have  failed, 
though  a  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  He  enjoyed  the  notoriety 
which  the  association  of  his  name  with  these  works  gave  him. 
He  neither  denied  nor  affirmed  that  he  was  their  author. 
Other  writers  palmed  off  their  plays  upon  the  public  under 
his  name,  or  one  so  like  it  in  sound  as  to  pass  for  it,  but  he 
made  no  complaint.  They  were  played  by  the  company  of 
which  he  was  a  member,  and  he  doubtless  took  minor  parts  in 
them.  The  more  advertising  in  this  way  the  better  for  his  in- 
terest ;  certainly,  this  is  a  fair  deduction  from  the  biographies 
of  him  which  we  possess. 

^  Shakespeare  Society,  London,  1845.    Cf.  Peter  Cunningham,  Extracts  from 
the  Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court.   London,  1842. 

2  Horace  Howard  Furness,  Ph.D.,    LL.D.,  A  New   Variorum  Edition  of 
Shakespeare,  vol.  11,  Appendix.   Philadelphia,  1877. 

3  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  109. 

106 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

But  there  were  plays  in  the  FoHo  which  the  "Diary"  in- 
forms us  were  written  by  others,  and  here,  perhaps,  it  is  best 
to  note  the  fact  that  Henslowe  sometimes  employed  several 
writers  to  construct  or  arrange  a  play  for  the  stage,  perhaps 
in  order  to  hasten  its  production,  as  appears  by  this  entry  in 
his  "Diary":  — 

Lent  unto  the  companye  the  22  of  May  1602,  to  geve  unto 
Antoney  Monday,  Mikell  Drayton,  Webester,  Mydehon  and  the 
rest,  in  earnest  of  a  Booke  called  Sesers  Falle  the  some  of  five 
pounds. 

This  raises  a  troublesome  question.  Was  this  the  Folio  play 
of  "Julius  Caesar"?  Collier,  the  editor  of  the  "Diary,"  says 
this  play,  written  in  1602,  was  produced  on  the  stage  in  1603 ; 
but  the  "Mirror  of  Martyrs,"  by  John  Weever,  published  in 
1601,  has  these  lines:  — 

The  many  headed  multitude  were  drawne 
By  Brutus  Speech,  that  Ccesar  was  ambitious 
When  eloquent  Mark  Antonie  had  showne 
His  vertues.^ 

This  allusion  was  seized  upon  to  account  for  a  perplexing 
dilemma.  There  must  have  been,  it  was  said,  two  plays  of 
"Julius  Caesar,"  the  play  in  the  Folio,  and  the  play  written 
for  Henslowe  in  1602.  The  first,  it  was  said,  was  based  upon 
Plutarch's  "Lives,"  which  is  devoid  of  a  funeral  oration  by 
Mark  Antony,  therefore,  the  oration  in  that  play  was  original 
with  its  author,  and  identified  him  with  it;  while  Henslowe 's 
play,  no  doubt  based  upon  the  same  authority,  and  now  sup- 
posed to  have  been  conveniently  lost,  was  presumably  without 
the  oration.  Unfortunately  for  this  theory,  a  rare  work, 
printed,  in  1578,  afforded  Weever  a  ready  source  for  his  allu- 
sion, and  discredits  the  assumption  that  he  referred  to  the 
play.  In  this  work  is  the  funeral  oration  by  Mark  Antony 
which  furnished  the  crude  elements  subsequently  transformed 

1  C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.,  Shakespeare's  Centurie  of  Prayse,  p.  42.  London, 
1879. 

107 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

in  the  alembic  of  genius  into  a  thing  of  beauty.  In  it  Antony- 
reads  the  will  and  moves  the  multitude  by  the  statement  that 
Caesar  had  adopted  Brutus,  and  made  the  people  his  heirs. 
As  he  read  each  clause,  "Antony  turned  his  face  and  his  hand 
toward  Caesar's  corpse  illustrating  his  discourse  by  action." 
He  spoke  "in  a  kind  of  divine  frenzy  and  then  lowered  his 
voice  to  a  sorrowful  tone  and  mourned  and  wept.''  ^ 

Were  there,  then,  two  plays  of  "Julius  Caesar,"  the  earlier 
being  the  Folio  play  written  previous  to  1601,  and  the  later 
one  written  for  Henslowe  for  the  purpose  of  competing  with 
it,  as  is  claimed,  but  which  mysteriously  disappeared .?  If  so, 
why  was  Henslowe's  play  the  only  one  entered  for  license 
previous  to  the  printing  of  the  Folio  twenty-one  years  later? 
The  readiest  explanation  would  seem  to  be  that  Henslowe's 
"Julius  Caesar"  was  that  of  the  Folio,  created  by  the  art  of 
an  unparalleled  genius,  and  to  meet  an  emergency  hastily  ar- 
ranged for  the  stage  by  expert  playwrights,  who  may  have  in- 
troduced some  minor  lines  in  the  least  important  parts  of  the 
dialogue.  We  can  hardly  go  so  far,  however,  as  Sir  Edward 
Clarke,  who  says :  — 

Of  the  350  lines  of  the  5  scenes  of  the  last  act  of  Julius  Caesar 
no  fewer  than  336  are  the  clumsy  work  of  another  hand,  at  a 
dead  level  of  dulness,  without  a  single  gleam  of  elevation  of 
thought,  or  distinction  of  phrase. 

On  the  other  hand,  Justin  McCarthy  and  Beerbohm  Tree 
refute  this. 

PLAYS    EXCLUDED   FROM   FIRST   FOLIO 

There  is  ample  evidence  that  the  actor  became  identified 
with  plays  of  which  he  had  the  handling,  and,  as  he  had  skill 
in  placing  them  upon  the  stage,  the  public  naturally  came  to 
speak  of  plays,  the  exhibition  of  which  this  able  factotum 
supervised,  as  "Shakespeare"  plays,  and  ran  to  see  them  in 

^  Horace  White,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  The  Roman  History  of  Appian  of  Alexandria, 
voL  II,  pp.  198-200.  London,  1899. 

108 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

preference  to  others  not  so  attractive.  This  accounts  for  the 
allusions  to  them  by  writers  of  the  period,  who  knew  noth- 
ing and  cared  nothing  about  their  real  authorship.  Such  a 
man  would  be  a  godsend  to  a  writer  who  desired  to  preserve 
anonymity,  and  at  the  same  time  secure  publicity  for  his 
productions,  and  what  a  ready  solution  he  would  offer  for 
the  fact  over  which  the  actor's  biographers  have  wondered 
and  lamented,  that  though  inferior  plays  were  published  under 
his  name  by  others  he  made  no  complaint.  Why  should  he  ? 
He  knew  the  authors ;  they  were  good  fellows,  or  in  a  higher 
rank  than  he,  influential  and  helpful  to  his  accumulation  of 
the  wealth  which  he  coveted  in  common  with  the  world  at 
large.  This  is  quite  in  keeping  with,  and  not  derogatory  to, 
the  man  as  his  biographers  reveal  him  to  us.  Certainly  no 
one  will  question  the  fact  that  writers  used  his  name  as  the 
author  of  their  works,  not  only  with  his  knowledge,  but  with- 
out objection  from  him. 

As  before  remarked,  not  a  single  play  or  book  of  any  kind 
was  ever  entered  for  license  on  the  Stationers'  Register  in  the 
name  of  the  actor;  but  the  "copy,"  so-called,  was  in  all  the 
cases  we  have  named  entered  by  others.  The  especial  object 
of  the  license  was  to  enable  the  censors  to  perform  the  duty 
assigned  them,  thus  preventing  the  publication  of  writings  in- 
jurious to  the  Government.  The  license  gave  the  owner  the 
right  to  publish,  and  this  right  could  be  assigned  at  any  time. 
Had  Jaggard  and  Blount  possessed  the  privilege  of  printing 
more  plays  bearing  the  actor's  name,  they  might  have  printed 
a  larger  number;  or,  if  written  by  an  author  who  desired  to 
remain  unknown,  he  might  have  controlled  their  selection. 
It  should  be  noted  that  when  the  Folio  was  published,  six- 
teen of  the  plays  were  entered  by  Jaggard  and  Blount  as 
"soe  manie  of  the  said  Copies  as  are  not  formerly  entered  to 
other  men."  This  is  a  significant  fact  worthy  of  the  reader's 
attention.   Of  the  plays  omitted  called  "doubtful,"  ^  "Peri- 

*  William  Hazlitt,  The  Doubtful  Plays  of  William  Shakespeare.  London,  n.d. 

109 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

cles"  has  been  admitted  into  the  Canon,  while  "Titus  An- 
dronicus/'  vouched  for  by  the  editors  of  the  FoHo,  is  still 
strenuously  disputed  by  most  critics. 

But  what  other  plays  existed  during  the  actor's  life,  some  if 
not  all  of  which  were  performed  by  the  company  to  which 
he  belonged,  and  which,  though  not  written  by  him,  bore 
his  name  or  initials,  and  were  popularly  known  as  "Shake- 
speare" plays?  This  inquiry  will  show  that  he  permitted 
writers  to  use  his  name  to  promote  his  interest,  and  from 
what  his  biographers  tell  us,  can  we  doubt  that  it  was  a 
pecuniary  one  ? 

SECOND,   THIRD,   AND   FOURTH   FOLIOS 

The  First  Folio  of  1623  having  become  scarce,  a  Second 
Folio  was  printed  in  1632,  and  was  a  duplicate  of  the  First 
with  a  few  unimportant  corrections  of  the  text.  But  the  ques- 
tion of  other  plays  which  were  also  known  as  "Shakespeare" 
plays  had  been  discussed,  and  Heminge  and  Condell's  seem- 
ingly arbitrary  selection  was  considered  too  narrow.  Why,  it 
was  asked,  were  not  more  of  the  "Shakespeare"  plays  in- 
cluded in  the  First  Folio?  In  1663,  a  Third  Folio,  a  duplicate 
of  the  Second,  was  printed,  and  reissued  the  following  year 
with  seven  of  the  ignored  plays.  On  the  title-page  the  ques- 
tioning public  is  informed  that 

Under  this  impression  are  added  seven  Plays  never  before 
printed  in  Folio,  viz:  — 

Pericles;  London  Prodigal;  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell;  Sir  John 
Oldcastle;  The  Puritan  Widow;  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy,  and 
Locrine. 

A  large  portion  of  this  edition  was  destroyed  in  the  Great 
Fire  of  1666,  and  it  is  now  a  rare  book.  In  1685  the  Fourth 
Folio  was  printed.  It  was  a  duplication  of  the  Third  except 
that  the  spelling  was  modernized.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  the 
later  Folios  have  seven  plays  selected  from  a  larger  number 
which,  during  the  actor's  life,  were  known  as  "Shakespeare" 

no 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

plays.  Few  modern  readers  of  the  works,  however,  are  ac- 
quainted with  them.  There  were  other  so-called  "Shake- 
speare" plays,  namely:  "Arden  of  Feversham,"  published 
in  1584;  "The  Arraignment  of  Paris,"  1584;  "The  Birth  of 
Merlin,"  1662;  "The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,"  1634;  "Car- 
denio,"  acted  as  early  as  1610,  first  printed  in  1653;  "The 
Double  Falsehood,"  first  published  by  Theobald  in  1728,  as 
"written  originally  by  W.  Shakespeare,"  and  which,  we  are 
told,  "according  to  tradition"  was  written  by  the  actor  for 
"a  natural  daughter  of  his  —  in  the  time  of  his  retirement 
from  the  stage."  ^  "Duke  Humphrey,"  by  "Will:  Shak- 
speare,"  registered  1660;  "Eurialus  and  Lucretia,"  registered 
as  a  work  of  "  Shakespear,"  1683;  'Tair  Em,"  published  in 
163 1,  found  in  a  collection  of  plays  belonging  to  Charles  H,  and 
lettered  "Shakespear";  "George  a  Green,"  acted  in  1593, 
published  1599;  "Henry  First  and  Second,"  by  "Will  Shake- 
spear and  Rob.  Davenport,"  registered,  1653.  "Iphis  and 
lantha,"  by  "Will:  Shakspeare,"  1660:  "The  Merry  Devil  of 
Edmonton,"  mentioned  in  1604,  registered,  1607;  "Muce- 
dorus,"  printed,  1598;  and  "Oldrastes  and  the  Second  Maid- 
en's Tragedy,"  registered,  161 1;  "The  History  of  King 
Stephen,"  by  "Will:  Shakespeare,"  registered,  1660:  "King 
Edward  Second,  Third  and  Fourth,"  1595. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  the  editors  of  the  First  Folio, 
out  of  at  least  sixty-four  plays  popularly  known  as  "  Shake- 
speare" plays,  published  a  little  over  half,  or  thirty-six.  These 
plays  were  on  the  stage  in  the  actor's  lifetime,  many  bore  his 
name  on  their  title-pages,  and  their  authorship  was  tacitly 
acknowledged  by  him.  Certainly  this  presents  a  condition 
of  affairs  hardly  consonant  with  modern  methods,  and  throws 
a  flood  of  light  upon  the  actor's  relations  to  a  large  number  of 
the  plays  of  his  time  which  passed  under  his  name,  but  in 
which  his  only  interest  was  in  getting  them  properly  before 
the  patrons  of  the  theater.     Phillipps,  reflecting  upon  the 

1  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  p.  194.    Ed.  1882. 
Ill 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

strange  fact  that  he  made  no  objection  to  the  use  of  his  name 
by  others,  makes  these  remarks  when  treating  of  the  "  Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim,"  and  "Sir  John  Oldcastle":  — 

It  Is  extremely  improbable  that  Shakespeare,  in  that  age  of 
small  London  and  few  publishers,  could  have  been  ignorant  of 
the  use  made  of  his  name  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Passionate 
Pilgrim.  —  There  was,  it  is  true,  no  legal  remedy,  but  there  is 
reason  for  believing  that,  in  this  case,  at  least,  a  personal  re- 
monstrance would  have  been  effective. 

And  — 

Owing,  perhaps,  to  the  apathy  exhibited  by  Shakespeare  on 
this  occasion,  a  far  more  remarkable  operation  in  the  same  kind 
of  knavery  was  perpetrated  in  the  latter  part  of  the  following 
year  by  the  publisher  of  the  First  Part  of  the  Life  of  Sir  John 
01dca«tle.i 

The  real  fact  would  seem  to  be  that  there  was  no  knavery 
at  all  in  the  transaction.  The  actor's  name  was  his  capital, 
and  his  permission  of  its  use  was  profitable  to  him.  This  is  a 
much  simpler  explanation  than  is  disclosed  by  tiresome  pages 
of  argument  expended  in  idle  wonder  over  a  very  simple  trans- 
action. By  placing  the  man  whom  his  biographers  describe 
in  his  true  position,  the  untangling  of  an  otherwise  impossible 
snarl  is  easily  accomplished. 

BLIND  GUIDES 

But  perhaps  the  most  significant  problem  is  presented  to 
us  in  the  early  authorship  of  several  of  the  plays  in  the  First 
Folio. 

We  have  followed  the  actor  to  London,  seen  him  a  drudge 
in  the  stables  and  theater  of  the  Burbages,  where  he  became 
their  factotum,  or  man  of  all  work,  by  good  humor  and  a 
ready  hand ;  useful  in  arranging  the  staging  of  the  plays,  and 
taking  minor  parts  in  them.  Later  we  have  seen  him  through 
the  eyes  of  contemporaries,  coarse,  dissolute,  and  grasping, 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  179-80. 
112 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

one  whose  position  made  him  a  convenient  intermediary  be- 
tween his  employers  and  needy  playwrights  who  were  glad 
to  let  their  productions  pass  under  his  name  as  the  readiest 
means  of  reaching  the  public.  Here  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  question  of  early  authorship.  It  seems  evident 
that  some  of  the  plays  which  were  subsequently  accredited 
to  him  were  in  existence  when  he  arrived  in  London.  Owing 
to  indifference  and  uncritical  judgment,  the  easy  theory  that 
he  was  the  author  of  the  plays  with  which  his  name  had  been 
associated,  and  later,  those  only  which  were  gathered  into  the 
Folio  of  1623,  obtained  a  standing  and  final  adoption  as  his 
by  the  uncritical  Rowe,  and  the  ambitious,  active,  and  none 
too  scrupulous  Steevens  and  Malone,  and  when  the  breezy 
Garrick  aroused  the  popular  enthusiasm  their  crazy  craft  of 
theory  was  launched. 

Fortunately  for  the  world,  among  the  things  with  which 
it  was  freighted  was  Heminge  and  Condell's  Folio,  and  the 
Quartos.  These  when  examined  by  the  critics  caused  trouble. 
The  pseudo-editors  of  the  Folio,  who  had  no  more  to  do  with 
the  book  than  the  actor  had  with  the  plays  it  contained,  were 
roundly  rated  for  their  misleading  statements  which  unneces- 
sarily complicated  a  sufficiently  troublesome  matter. 

The  evident  earliness  of  some  of  the  plays,  the  remarkable 
literary  character  and  wide  learning  which  they  displayed, 
were  disturbing.  The  first,  they  realized,  it  would  be  fatal 
to  acknowledge,  and  so  they  flatly  denied  that  they  were  the 
same  plays,  but  plagiarized  versions  of  earlier  plays  of  the 
same  name,  furbished  and  improved  by  the  actor's  assumed 
genius ;  an  assumption  of  which  they  made  excellent  use  in 
accounting  for  the  other  difficulties  in  their  way— their  literary 
character  and  display  of  learning.  It  was  easy  to  assert  that 
these  old  plays  were  lost.  Two  were  triumphantly  brought 
forth,  the  "Taming  of  a  Shrew"  and  the  "Hamlet"  of  1603 ; 
but  these  proved  to  be  boomerangs.  They  were  impressions 
of  such  copies  as  Heminge  and  Condell  denominated  "maimed 

113 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

and  deformed  by  the  frauds  and  stealthes  of  injurious  im- 
posters,"  but  which  they,  "pious  fellowes/'  pubhshed  "per- 
fect in  their  Hmbes,  and  absolute  in  their  numbers,"  as  their 
author  "conceived  them."  No,  among  the  hundreds  of  old 
plays  which  survived,  not  one  of  these  particular  old  plays 
existed.  They  were  never  "conceived,"  much  less  born.  If 
asked  when  the  actor  became  a  great  linguist,  scientist,  his- 
torian, lawyer,  theological  expert,  courtier,  not  to  mention 
poet  and  philosopher,  they  unblushingly  replied,  "  During  the 
five  years  in  which  he  was  not  publicly  mentioned."  Why 
should  this  poor  hostler  and  theatrical  man  of  all  work  have 
sufficiently  attracted  the  attention  of  those  in  power  to  be 
mentioned  ^  Men  struggling  for  an  honest  living  in  his  class 
were  not  likely  to  attract  such  public  recognition  in  Tudor 
times.  Having  called  attention  to  the  dilemma  in  which  Strat- 
fordian  critics  found,  and  still  find,  themselves,  we  propose  to 
bring  their  acknowledged  experts  before  the  High  Court  of 
Common  Sense  for  examination,  who  —  especially  Lee  with 
his  jack-in-the-box,  Kyd,  and  curiously  autocratic  voice, 
and  the  "monumental  scholar,"  Furness,  who  for  nearly 
forty  years  disturbed  the  black-lead  market  by  his  demand 
for  pencils  to  write  his  multitudinous  notes  —  will  be  sure  to 
amuse  the  reader.  Their  testimony  will  well  illustrate  the 
remark  made  by  a  former  Harvard  president,  that  a  fault  in 
the  premise  always  conspicuously  reappears  in  the  conclusion. 

We  will  suppose  the  court  convened,  our  readers  empan- 
eled as  jurors,  and  the  experts  qualified  as  witnesses.  We 
name  as  we  proceed  various  plays,  and  in  each  case  ask  the 
witnesses  to  tell  us  what  they  know  about  it.  We  name  first 

Titus  Andronicus,  which  has  occasioned  so  much  dis- 
cussion, some  vehemently  attacking,  and  others,  with  equal 
vehemence,  defending  its  claim  to  a  place  in  the  Canon.  There 
is  a  record  by  Henslowe  of  a  production  of  this  play  on  Jan- 
uary 23,  1594,  and  later  it  was  entered  anonymously  on  the 
Register  for  publication  with  a  ballad,  included  subsequently 

114 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

in  Percy's  "Reliques."  Its  authorship,  however,  was  much 
earUer.  Ben  Jonson,  no  later  than  1613,  wrote  that  it  had 
"stood  still"  on  the  stage  for  twenty-five  or  thirty  years. 
Taking  161 3  as  the  starting  point,  this  would  place  its  date 
between  1583-88.  It  was  based,  says  Phillipps,  by  its  author 
on  the 

repulsive  tale  of  .  .  .  the  Tamora  and  Andronici,  and  his  earliest 
play  ...  it  was  not  regarded  as  out  of  the  pale  of  the  legitimate 
drama  by  the  most  cultivated,  otherwise,  so  able  a  scholar  and 
critic  as  Meres  would  hardly  have  inserted  its  title  amongst  those 
of  the  noteworthy  tragedies  of  Shakespeare.^ 

Says  Upton :  — 

The  whole  play  of  "Titus  Andronicus"  should  be  flung  out  of 
the  list  of  Shakespeare's  Works. 

Referring  to  Ben  Jonson's  statement,  he  continues:  — 

Consequently,  "Andronicus"  must  have  been  on  the  stage 
before  Shakespeare  left  Warwickshire  to  come  and  reside  in 
London,  so  that  we  have  all  the  evidence,  both  internal  and 
external,  to  vindicate  our  poet  from  this  bastard  issue.^ 

Had  Upton  foreseen  the  bearing  of  this  admission  he  never 
would  have  ventured  to  make  it. 
Lee  says :  — 

"Titus  Andronicus  "  was  in  his  own  lifetime  claimed  for  Shake- 
speare.^ 

And,  basing  his  opinion  upon  Ravenscroft's  statement 
that  it  was  delivered  to  the  theater  by  an  unknown  author, 
repudiates  it,  and,  though  not  original  in  this,  suggests  Kyd 
as  its  author.  We  shall  see  what  a  convenient  scapegoat  has 
been  made  of  the  mythical  Kyd.  Lee  has  especially  laid 
upon  him  the  sins  of  anonymous  authorship ;  but  this  is  not 

1  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  no. 

2  John  Upton,  Critical  Observations  on  Shakespeare,  pp.  288,  289.  London, 
1798. 

3  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  65.   London,  1898. 

IIS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

enough;  he  must  have  an  orthodox  genealogy,  and  one  has 
been  furnished  based  upon  identity  of  name,  a  method  that 
Colonel  Chester  or  Fitz  Waters  would  regard  with  a  smile, 
especially  the  latter  whose  amusing  story  of  his  troubles  with 
the  unusual  name  of  Rose  Raysing  is  one  of  the  writer's  un- 
fading memories. 
Says  Collier:  — 

We  feel  no  hesitation  in  assigning  "Titus  Andronlcus"  to 
Shakespeare. 

And  he  points  out 

the  remarkable  indications  of  skill  and  power  in  an  unpracticed 
dramatist;  as  a  poetical  production  it  has  not  hitherto  had  jus- 
tice done  it  on  account  partly  of  the  revolting  nature  of  the  plot. 
It  was  undoubtedly  one  of  his  earliest,  if  not  his  very  earliest 
dramatic  production.^ 

An  eminent  German  critic  remarks  that 

Almost  all  English  commentators  are  agreed  that  Shakespeare 
for  aesthetic  reasons  cannot  have  been  the  author  of  this  drama. 

Referring  to  the  early  date  of  the  play,  in  which  he  agrees 
with  Hertzberg  and  Ulrici,  he  calls  attention  to  the  ballad 
before  mentioned  which,  he  says,  — 

was  undoubtedly  written  after  Shakespeare's  drama.  The  date 
of  the  origin  of  the  play  is  supported  not  only  by  the  most  impor- 
tant internal  characteristics,  but  also  an  allusion  in  the  introduc- 
tion to  Ben  Jonson's  "Bartholomew  Fair,"  which  Englishmen, 
for  no  reason,  refer  to  a  non-Shakespearean  drama. 

And  he  presses  his  point  in  this  wise :  — 

It  would  be  unreasonable  forthwith  to  reject  as  absurd  the 
supposition  that  "Titus  Andronicus"  was  written  before  Shake- 
speare left  Stratford.  2 

1  J.  Payne  Collier,  Esq.,  F.S.A.,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  vi,  pp.  205, 
206.  New  York,  1853. 

2  Karl  Elze,  Ph.D.,  Essays  on  Shakespeare,  pp.  60,  66,  348-49.  London, 
1894. 

116 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 
And  again,  — 

Some  commentators,  with  much  less  probability,  assign  the 
first  beginning  of  the  " Sonnets''  to  the  period  before  the  poet 
quitted  home.^ 

The  author  of  the  University  edition,  however,  admits 
its  early  authorship  and  accredits  it  to  Shakespeare:  he 
says,  — 

We  may  infer  that  in  1614,  only  one  play  currently  known  as 
"Andronicus"  existed,  and  that  this  is  dated  from  1584-89. 
This  favors  the  view  that  there  never  had  substantially  been 
more  than  one  play  on  the  story,  whatever  slight  variations  in 
detail  it  may  have  undergone.^ 

But,  declares  Furnivall,  "to  nie  as  to  Hallam  and  many  others, 
the  play  declares  as  plainly  as  play  can  speak,  I  am  not  Shake- 
speare." Nearly  all  the  best  critics  from  Theobald  downwards 
are  agreed  that  very  little  of  the  play  was  written  by  Shake- 
speare, and  such  is  my  own  judgment  now,  though  "in  my  salad 
days,"  I  wrote  and  printed  otherwise.^ 

Lloyd  takes  this  view :  — 

The  internal  evidence  that  has  weighed  against  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  play  founds  on  the  defect  of  its  versification  —  on 
the  absence  of  dramatic  spirit  and  poetic  imagery  —  and  lastly 
on  the  savage  details  of  the  story.  The  monotonous  and  lame 
versification  is  —  allowing  a  date,  quite  consistent  with  an  early 
—  perhaps  the  earliest  essay  of  Shakespeare,  and  we  may  dis- 
agree but  have  no  quarrel  with  those  who  adopt  this  view  in 
preference  to  casting  the  blame  on  any  supposed  original,  that 
he  altered  and  did  not  entirely  overwrite;  and  think  that  we  may 
trace  in  the  play  the  gradations  by  which  this  embarrassed  style 
grew  into  the  true  Shakespearian  vigour.^ 

1  Karl  Elze,  Ph.D.,  Essays  on  Shakespeare,  pp.  60,  66,  348-49-  London, 
1894. 

2  C.  H.  Herford,  Litt.D.,  Hon.  Litt.D.,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  vii, 
p.  286.   London,  1904. 

3  Fred'k  J.  Furnivall,  M.A.,  The  Succession  of  Shakespeare  Works,  p.  xxii. 
London,  1874  (Leopold  edition).  Rev.  Henry  N.  Hudson,  The  Complete  Works 
of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  xiii,  p.  4.   Boston,  1899  (Hudson  edition). 

*  William  Watkiss  Lloyd,  Critical  Essays  on  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare,  pp. 
349>  350-   London,  1909. 

117 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Perhaps  before  dismissing  "Titus  Andronicus"  we  would 
do  well  to  quote  Malone,  who  throws  some  suggestive 
lights  upon  the  subject  especially  interesting  to  Bacon- 
ians :  — 

To  enter  into  a  long  disquisition  to  prove  this  piece  not  to  have 
been  written  by  Shakespeare,  would  be  an  idle  waste  of  time,  — 
I  will,  however,  mention  one  mode  by  which  it  may  be  easily 
ascertained. 

He  then  presents  a  list  of  fourteen  plays,  "Selimus,"  "Lo- 
crine,"  "Arden  of  Feversham,"  "Edward  I,"  "Spanish  Trag- 
edy," "Solyman  and  Perseda,"  "King  Leir,"  "the  old 
King  John,"  and  others;  plays  which  for  the  most  part  are 
claimed  by  Baconians  to  be  early  productions  of  the  author 
of  "Hamlet,"  and  declares  "'Titus  Andronicus,'  was  coined 
in  the  same  mint";  and  he  continues  thus:  — 

The  testimony  of  Meres,  mentioned  in  a  preceding  note,  alone 
remains  to  be  considered.  His  enumerating  this  among  Shak- 
speare's  plays  may  be  accounted  for  in  the  same  way  in  which 
we  may  account  for  its  being  printed  by  his  fellow-comedians 
in  the  first  folio  edition  of  his  works.  Meres  was  in  1598,  when 
his  book  appeared,  intimately  connected  with  Drayton,  and 
probably  acquainted  with  some  of  the  dramatic  poets  of  the  time, 
from  some  or  other  of  whom  he  might  have  heard  that  Shak- 
speare  interested  himself  about  this  tragedy,  or  had  written  a 
few  lines  for  the  author.  The  internal  evidence  furnished  by 
the  piece  itself,  and  proving  it  not  to  have  been  the  production  of 
Shakspeare,  greatly  outweighs  any  single  testimony  on  the  other 
side.  Meres  might  have  been  misinformed,  or  inconsiderately 
have  given  credit  to  the  rumour  of  the  day.  For  six  of  the  plays 
which  he  has  mentioned,  (exclusive  of  the  evidence  which  the 
representation  of  the  pieces  themselves  might  have  furnished,)  he 
had  perhaps  no  better  authority  than  the  whisper  of  the  theater; 
for  they  were  not  then  printed.  He  could  not  have  been  de- 
ceived by  a  title-page,  as  Dr.  Johnson  supposes;  for  Shakspeare's 
name  is  not  in  the  title-page  of  the  edition  printed  in  quarto 
in  161 1,  and  therefore  we  may  conclude,  was  not  in  the  title- 
page  of  that  in  1594,  of  which  the  other  was  undoubtedly  a  re- 
impression. 

118 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Malone,  entirely  oblivious  of  the  future  effect  of  his  words 
upon  the  question  of  the  authorship  of  the  plays,  discloses 
with  surprising  clearness  the  careless  conditions  surrounding 
the  authorship  of  such  works,  which  easily  permitted  the 
ascription  of  a  play  to  one  who  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It 
was  legitimate  then  for  a  partisan  of  the  actor  to  tell  the  truth 
in  such  a  case,  but  now,  if  he  did  so,  he  would  be  smitten  hip 
and  thigh  by  our  modern  Philistines  and  cast  out  of  the  camp, 
the  old  truth  having  become  heresy. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  a 
dramatic  version  of  a  Spanish  romance  of  George  de  Monte- 
mayor,  first  translated  into  English  in  1598.  Some  critics 
have  traced  unimportant  resemblances  to  other  sources.  In 
1585  a  play  was  enacted  before  the  Queen  at  Greenwich, 
under  the  title  of  "Felix  and  Philomena,"  the  names  of  the 
hero  and  heroine  of  this  romance.  The  first  mention  of  "The 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona"  was  made  in  1598,  by  Francis 
Meres,  who,  next  to  Henslowe,  is  our  most  important  witness 
in  dramatic  matters  of  this  period.  As  it  is,  according  to  the 
best  authorities,  a  version  of  Montemayor's  romance,  would 
the  authorship  of  the  earlier  play  by  the  Stratford  actor  have 
been  questioned,  we  may  ask,  had  he  been  in  London  in  1SB5,  -^ 
and  accredited  with  the  authorship  of  dramatic  works?  It 
seems  doubtful,  though  now  it  is  assumed  that  there  were  two 
plays  on  the  same  subject.  Says  Collier  of  this  play:  — 

It  is  unquestionably  the  work  of  a  young  and  unpracticed 
dramatist.  It  may  have  been  written  very  soon  after  he  joined 
a  theatrical  company.  The  notion  of  some  critics  that  the  "Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona"  contains  few  or  no  marks  of  Shake- 
speare's hand  is  a  strong  proof  of  their  incompetence  to  form  a 
judgment.^ 

The  last  sentence  is  strangely  familiar.  It  is  the  jawbone 
with  which  the  orthodox  Shaksperians  like  Lee,  Collins,  Rob- 
ertson, and  others,  smite  all  Philistine  dissenters. 

1  J.  Payne  Collier,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  69. 
119 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Says  White :  — 

Among  the  unaccountable  and  incomprehensible  blunders  of 
the  critics  of  the  last  century  with  regard  to  Shakespeare  and 
his  works,  was  the  denial  by  two  of  them,  Hanmer  and  Upton,  — 
and  the  doubt  by  more,  that  he  wrote  the  "Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona."  .  .  .  The  comparatively  timid  style  and  unskillful  struc- 
ture .  .  .  show  that  it  was  the  work  of  Shakespeare.  .  .  .  May 
we  not  place  the  production  of  his  first  three  or  four  plays,  of 
which  this  is  undoubtedly  one,  earlier  than  1591 .?  ^ 

And  Phillipps:  — 

The  general  opinion  that  the  "Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona" 
is  one  of  the  author's  very  earliest  complete  dramatic  efforts  may 
be  followed  without  much  risk  of  error. ^ 

Let  us  now  consider  Hamlet,  concerning  which  there  seems 
to  be  a  consensus  of  opinion  that  it  is  the  greatest  of  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works. 

This  play  founded  upon  the  history  of  Denmark  by  Saxo 
Grammaticus,  published  in  Paris  in  15 14,  was  on  the  stage 
about  the  time  of  the  actor's  arrival  in  London,  in  1587,  if 
not  earlier.  This  date  is  fixed  by  Thomas  Nash  in  1589  as 
follows :  — 

It  is  a  common  practice,  now  a  dales,  amongst  a  sorte  of  shift- 
ing companions,  —  to  leave  the  trade  of  Nouerint,  whereto  they 
were  borne,  and  busie  themselves  with  the  endeuors  of  art.  Yet 
English  Seneca  read  by  candle  light  yeeldes  manie  good  sentences 
—  and  if  you  entreate  him  faire  in  a  frostie  morning,  he  will 
aifoord  you  whole  Hamletts,  I  should  say  handfuUs  of  tragical 
speeches.^ 

The  meaning  of  the  word  "Noverint"  is  significant.  Nash 
attributes  the  authorship  of  "Hamlet"  to  a  lawyer,  "Nove- 
rint  universi,"  being  a  preliminary  to  legal  instruments,  and 
equivalent  to  "  Know  all  men,"  etc. 

^  White,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  11,  pp.  102,  103.   Boston,  1865. 
*  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  11,  p.  284. 

8  Greene's  Menaphon.  London,  1589,  n.p.  Cf.  Sir  E.  Bridges,  Bart.,  M.P., 
Archaica,  vol.  i,  p.  xiii.  London,  1815. 

120 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  next  allusion  to  this  play  is  made  in  1591  by  Thomas 
Nash,  in  a  preface  to  a  work  of  Sidney  in  which  he  says  he 
cannot  "sit  taboring  five  years  together  nothing  but  'to  be, 
to  be'  on  a  paper  drum,"  the  words  paper  drum  signifying 
dramatic  poetry.  In  1594  there  is  an  entry  in  Henslowe's 
"Diary"  as  follows:  "9  of  June  1594,  Rd  at  hamlet  — 
VHP  " ;  which  shows  that  Henslowe  received  eight  shillings 
as  his  share,  or  part  of  it,  from  a  performance  of  the  play. 
The  smallness  of  this  sum,  supposing  it  to  represent  his  whole 
share,  has  caused  the  writing  of  many  pages  of  trifling  con- 
jecture, though  a  heavy  storm,  a  neighboring  conflagration, 
or  what  is  more  probable,  the  competition  with  Children's 
Plays,  so-called,  then  very  popular,  might  easily  account  for 
it.  We  next  hear  of  it  when  Lodge  refers  to  "The  ghost  which 
cried  so  miserably  at  the  Theater  like  an  oister  wife,  'Hamlet 
revenge.'  "  ^  In  1598  Gabriel  Harvey  refers  to  it  by  name, 
and  in  1602  Dekker  in  his  "Satiromastix"  uses  these  words, 
"No,  fye'st  my  name's  Hamlet,  revenge;  —  Thou  hast  been 
at  Parris  Garden,  hast  not?"  In  1603  "Hamlet"  was  pub- 
lished for  the  first  time  in  quarto,  though  it  had  been  entered 
some  months  before  under  the  title  of  the  "  Revenge  of  Ham- 
let, Prince  of  Denmark,"  and  on  the  title-page  was  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

As  it  hath  beene  diverse  times  acted  by  his  Highnesse  servants 
in  the  Cittie  of  London;  as  also  in  the  two  Vniversities  of  Cam- 
bridge and  Oxford,  and  else-where. 

We  thus  have  continuous  notices  of  this  play  from  a  date 
as  early  as  the  actor's  arrival  in  London  until  1603.  The 
Quarto  of  "Hamlet"  of  this  date  was  a  godsend  to  a  few  en- 
thusiasts who  at  once  shouted,  "We  have  found  one  of  the 
old  plays  that  Shakspere  rewrote."  Well,  what  if  it  were  so.? 
It  would  only  make  him  "a  rank  plagiarist,"  as  Knight  saw, 
and  warned  them  against ;  but  that  they  believed  to  be  the 

^  Lodge,  Wit^s  Miserie^  p.  56.  London,  1596. 
121 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

lesser  of  two  evils,  and  some  still  fatuously  adhere  to  it.  To 
add  to  the  confusion  the  very  next  year,  1604,  another  Quarto 
was  printed  for  one  of  the  same  publishers,  Nicholas  Ling, 
with  substantially  the  same  title-page  upon  which  was  the 
following :  — 

Newly  imprinted  and  enlarged  to  almost  as  much  againe  as 
it  was,  according  to  the  true  and  perfect  Coppie. 

This  Quarto  practically  gives  us  "  Hamlet "  as  we  now  have 
it.  Phillipps  explains  this  by  avoiding  the  dilemma  of  recog- 
nizing the  1603  Quarto  as  an  early  play  which  had  conven- 
iently dropped  out  of  existence,  and  supposes  it  to  be  a  muti- 
lated copy  of  the  true  "  Hamlet "  fraudulently  foisted  upon  the 
public.  He  says  that  Ling  and  his  associate,  Trundell,  — 

Employed  an  inferior  and  clumsy  writer  to  work  up,  in  his 
own  fashion,  what  scraps  of  the  play  had  been  furtively  obtained 
from  shorthand  notes  or  other  memoranda,  into  the  semblance 
of  a  perfect  drama,  which  they  had  the  audacity  to  publish  as 
Shakespeare's  own  work.^ 

Fumivall  takes  practically  the  same  view.  But  what  proof 
is  there  that  there  ever  was  an  older  play  of  "Hamlet"  by 
an  unknown  author.^  None  whatever.  It  is  a  pure  assumption 
of  Malone  based  upon  the  entry  in  Henslowe's  "Diary"  al- 
ready quoted.  So  small  a  sum  as  eight  shillings  he  concludes 
is  full  confirmation  that  there  was  an  older  play  of  "Hamlet." 
He  says :  — 

It  cannot  be  supposed  that  our  poet's  play  should  have  been 
performed  but  once  in  the  time  of  this  account,  and  that  Mr. 
Henslowe  should  have  drawn  from  such  a  piece  but  the  sum  of 
eight  shillings,  when  his  share  in  several  other  plays  came  to 
three  and  sometimes  four  pounds. 

And  he  suggests  that  it  might  have  been  written  by  Kyd. 
From  this  Skottowe  ventures  to  assert  that  there  was  an 
old  play,  and  when  Lowndes  compiled  his  "Bibliographer's 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines^  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  208. 
122 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Manual/'  he  adopted  the  assertion,  and  unwarrantably  listed 
"  Kyd's  old  play  of  Hamlet,"  which  was  wholly  mythical,  as 
though  it  were  a  well-known  work.  This  is  an  excellent  illus- 
tration of  how  mere  speculations  in  history  become  crystal- 
lized into  fact  in  the  encyclopaedia  to  mislead  unwary  students. 
Says  Staunton:  — 

What  really  concerns  us  is  to  know  whether,  making  large 
allowance  for  omissions  and  corruptions  due  to  the  negligence  of 
those  through  whose  hands  the  manuscript  passed,  the  edition 
of  1603  exhibits  the  play  as  Shakespeare  first  wrote  it,  and  as  it 
was  "divers  times  acted."   We  believe  it  does.^ 

Says  Knight :  — 

Not  a  tittle  of  distinct  evidence  exists  to  show  that  there  was 
any  other  play  of  "Hamlet"  but  that  of  Shakspere;  and  all  of 
the  collateral  evidence  upon  which  it  is  inferred  that  an  earlier 
play  of  "Hamlet"  than  Shakspere's  did  exist,  may,  on  the  other 
hand,  be  taken  to  prove  that  Shakspere's  original  sketch  of  Ham- 
let was  in  repute  at  an  earlier  period  than  is  commonly  assigned 
as  its  date.^ 

Lee,  however,  adopting  Malone's  suggestion,  or  Lowndes* 
careless  note,  positively  asserts :  — 

The  story  of  the  Prince  of  Denmark  had  been  popular  on  the 
stage  as  early  as  1589  in  a  lost  dramatic  version  by  another  writer, 
doubtless  Thomas  Kyd.  To  that  lost  version  of  "Hamlet," 
Shakespeare's  tragedy  certainly  owed  much. 

As  there  was  no  English  translation  of  the  story  upon  which 
the  so-called  later  "Hamlet"  was  founded,  he  coolly  informs 
us  that  "Shakespeare  doubtless  read  it  in  French." ^ 

Timmins  gives  us  this  saner  and  safer  opinion :  — 

I  record  my  own  conviction  that  both  texts  now  republished 
are  most  valuable,  the  first  a  rough-hewn  draft  of  a  noble  drama 
(written  probably  1587-89)  "divers  times  acted  by  His  Highness' 

1  Howard  Staunton,  The  Plays  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  in,  p.  327.  London,  i860. 

2  Knight,  Tragedies,  vol.  i,  p.  93. 

3  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  221.   London,  1898. 

123 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

till  1602,  when  it  was  entered  for  publication  and  soon 
after  "enlarged"  and  "shaped"  as  it  appears  in  the  Second 
quarto  by  the  divine  bard's  maturer  mind.^ 

Fumess  gives  us  this  fanciful  opinion:  — 

That  there  was  an  old  play  on  the  story  of  Hamlet,  some  por- 
tions of  which  are  still  preserved  in  Q  i :  that  about  the  year 
1602,  Shakespeare  took  this  and  began  to  remodel  it  for  the 
stage,  as  he  had  done  with  other  plays;  that  Q  i  represents  the 
play  after  it  had  been  retouched  by  him  to  a  certain  extent,  but 
before  his  alterations  were  complete;  and  that  in  Q  2  we  have  for 
the  first  time  the  "Hamlet"  of  Shakespeare. ^ 

This  acute  anxiety  of  Furness  and  others  to  get  a  single  bit 
of  evidence,  however  shadowy,  to  buttress  their  contention, 
discloses  pitiable  weakness ;  but  like  everything  that  has  been 
promulgated  to  serve  their  purpose  this  has  failed,  for  it  is 
evident  that  the  same  brain  that  conceived  the  ** Hamlet" 
of  1603,  conceived  that  of  1604  which  is  virtually  that  of  the 
Folio.  It  is  quite  likely  that  the  former  is  a  mutilated  copy; 
that  it  has  been  liberally  "cut,"  and  passages  "emended" 
by  the  players ;  but  there  is  enough  left  to  prove  its  author- 
ship. It  is  somewhat  curious  that  in  the  grave-digger  scene, 
the  jester  is  said  to  have  been  "i  the  earth  a  dozen  years." 
If  he  died  in  1579  this  would  make  the  date  of  the  play  1591, 
which  is  near  the  supposed  date  of  the  "old  play."  A  dozen 
years  is  a  convenient  term  to  designate  an  approximate  time, 
but  when  revised  and  enlarged  by  its  author  in  1602-03,^  is 
it  not  significative  that  the  time  of  Yorick's  death  is  changed 
to  "23  yeeres"  in  order  to  make  it  conform  to  the  true  date? 
From  Rowe  to  the  present  time  this  has  passed  unobserved, 
but  had  the  critics  noticed  it  and  thought  it  favorable  to  their 

^  Samuel  Timmins,  The  Devonshire  Hamlets,  p.  viil,  et  seq. 

2  Furness,  A  New  Variorum  Edition  oj  Shakespeare,  vol.  iv,  p.  32.  Philadel- 
phia, 1877. 

3  The  Quarto  of  1603  was  registered  July  26,  1602,  and  the  Quarto  of  1604 
about  six  months  later;  namely,  February  7,  1602,  old  style;  both  to  James 
Roberts. 

124 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

contention,  would  it  not  have  been  heralded  as  a  remarkable 
discovery?  We  shall  allude  to  this  later. 

To  Knight  we  are  indebted  for  a  more  reasonable  analysis 
of  the  subject,  and  will  briefly  quote :  — 

We  can  find  nothing,  he  says,  in  Malone's  argument  to  prove 
that  it  was  not  Shakspere's  Hamlet  which  was  acted  by  Shak- 
spere's  company  on  the  9th  of  June,  1594.  .  .  .  Their  occupation 
of  it  —  Henslowe's  theater — might  have  been  very  temporary; 
and  during  that  occupation,  Shakspere's  Hamlet  might  have  been 
once  performed.  .  .  .  And  now  we  must  express  our  decided  opin- 
ion grounded  upon  an  attentive  comparison  of  the  original 
sketch  (1603)  with  the  perfect  play  (1604)  that  the  original 
sketch  was  an  early  production  of  our  poet.  That  the  play  which 
the  commentators  imagine  to  be  lost  is  to  be  found  in  the  Quarto 
of  1603,  and  much  improved  in  that  of  1604,  seems  too  evident 
to  require  discussion.  The  appearance  in  it  of  the  King's  ghost, 
which  is  not  found  in  the  history  from  which  it  was  taken  but 
was  the  creation  of  the  author,  and  of  Hamlet's  soliloquy,  are 
enough  to  identify  it,  and  we  must  conclude  that  it  was  a  youth- 
ful work  improved  by  its  author  in  maturer  years. ^ 

Says  Gervinus :  — 

According  to  Thomas  Nash  —  there  was  a  drama  upon  Ham- 
let as  early  as  1589,  and  perhaps  even  1587.  Several  English 
critics  believe  this  old  play  itself  to  be  the  work  of  Shakespeare's 
youthful  hand.  And  it  was  certain  that  the  poet  was  occupied 
with  this  subject,  as  with  Romeo  and  Juliet,  at  an  earlier  stage 
of  his  dramatic  career.^ 

This  view  should  dispose  of  the  question  of  the  actor's 
authorship  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works.  But  there  are  other 
works  in  the  Folio  to  puzzle  commentators. 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  This  comedy  has  proved  for 
critics  a  Pandora's  box,  for,  as  in  the  case  of  "Hamlet,"  they 
tell  us  there  was  a  previous  play  entitled,  "The  Taming  of  a 
Shrew."  We  first  hear  of  it  in  Greene's  "Menaphon"  in  1589. 

1  Knight,  Tragedies,  vol.  i,  pp.  92,  93- 

*  Gervinus,  Shakespeare  Commentaries,  p.  549.  London,  1883. 

I2S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

With  respect  to  the  play  as  we  have  it  in  the  Folio,  Malone 
says :  — 

I  had  supposed  the  piece  to  have  been  written  in  the  year 
1606.  On  a  more  attentive  perusal  of  it,  and  more  experience 
of  our  author's  style  and  manner,  I  am  persuaded  that  it  was 
one  of  his  very  early  productions. 

And  Collier :  — 

/  am  satisfied  that  more  than  one  hand  (perhaps  at  distant  dates) 
was  concerned  in  it,  and  that  Shakespeare  had  little  to  do  with 
any  of  the  scenes  in  which  Katherine  and  Petrucio  are  not  en- 
gaged .  .  .  the  underplot  much  resembles  the  dramatic  style  of 
William  Haughton. 

While  Steevens  replies:  — 

I  know  not  to  whom  I  could  impute  this  comedy  if  Shake- 
speare was  not  its  author. 

With  these  quotations  Knight  introduces  his  own  opinion 
of  the  subject :  — 

"The  Taming  of  a  Shrew"  first  appeared  in  1594,  —  "as  it 
was  sundry  times  acted  by  .  .  .  The  Earle  of  Pembroke,  his  serv- 
ants." .  .  . 

The  incidents  are  precisely  the  same  as  those  of  the  play  which 
we  call  Shakspere's.  The  scene  of  the  old  play  is  laid  at  Athens; 
that  of  Shakspere's  at  Padua.  The  Athens  of  the  one  and  the 
Padua  of  the  other  are  resorts  of  learning.  This  undoubted  re- 
semblance involves  some  necessity  for  conjecture,  with  very  little 
guide  from  evidence.  The  first  and  most  obvious  hypothesis 
is  that  the  "Taming  of  a  Shrew"  was  an  older  play  than  Shak- 
spere's and  that  he  borrowed  from  that  comedy.  The  question 
then  arises,  who  was  its  author.^ 

He  then  proceeds  to  compare  it  with  Greene's  "Orlando 
Furioso"  with  very  poor  success.  At  a  later  period,  having 
had  his  attention  drawn  by  a  correspondent  to  Marlowe  he 
says :  — 

We  now  propose  a  second  theory  altogether  different  from  our 
previous  notion,  from  that  of  our  correspondent,  and  from  that 

126 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  any  other  writer.  Was  there  not  an  older  play  than  the  "  Tam- 
ing of  a  Shrew,''  which  furnished  the  main  plot,  some  of  the 
characters,  and  a  small  part  of  the  dialogue,  both  to  the  author  of 
"The  Taming  of  a  Shrew,"  and  the  author  of  the  "Taming  of 
the  Shrew."  .  .  .  But  there  is  a  third  theory  —  that  of  Tieck  — 
that  the  "Taming  of  a  Shrew"  was  a  youthful  work  of  Shak- 
spere  himself.^ 

This  theory  he  finally  accepts  and  calls  attention  to  the 
entry  in  Henslowe's  "Diary"  of  the  3d  June,  1594,  already 
alluded  to  with  reference  to  "Hamlet,"  and  continues:  — 

This  entry  of  "the  taminge  of  a  shrewe"  immediately  follows 
that  of  Hamlet:  and  we  see  nothing  to  shake  our  belief  that  both 
these  were  Shakspere's  plays.  ^ 

Says  Gervinus :  — 

No  other  undisputed  [sic]  play  of  Shakspeare's  furnishes  so 
much  evidence  of  his  learning  and  study  as  the  "Taming  of  the 
Shrew."  In  the  address  of  the  Syracusan  Antipholus  to  Luciana, 
—  "Comedy  of  Errors,"  —  in  which  he  calls  her  a  m,ermaid, 
and  asks  her,  "Are  you  a  god.^"  there  is  a  purely  Homeric  tone; 
the  same  passage  bearing  the  same  stamp  is  met  with  again  in 
the  "Taming  of  the  Shrew"  where  Katherine,  when  she  addresses 
Vincentio,  uses  a  similar  passage  from  Ovid,  borrowed  by  him 
from  Hom.er,  the  antique  sound  of  which  lingers  even  under  the 
touch  of  a  fourth  hand.  This  prevailing  mannerism  of  his  youth- 
ful writings  ought  long  ago  to  have  determined  the  position  of 
this  play  as  belonging  to  the  earliest  period  of  the  poet.^ 

In  other  words,  when  he  was  a  hostler  or  call-boy  for  the 
BurbageSj  and  while  he  was  speaking  the  "patois"  of  War- 
wickshire. 

Let  us  listen  to  Rolfe :  — 

"The  Taming  of  the  Shrew"  is  evidently  an  adaptation  of 
an  earlier  play  published  anonymously  in  1594 — called  "The 
Taming  of  a  Shrew."  Fleay  believes  that  this  old  play  was  writ- 
ten by  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare  in  conjunction  in  1589,  but 

^  Knight,  Comediesy  vol.  i,  pp.  264-68. 

*  Gervinus,  Shakespeare  Commentaries,  pp.  138,  139.   London,  1883. 

127 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  critics  generally  agree  that  the  latter  had  no  hand  in  it.  They 
also  agree  that  somebody  besides  Shakespeare  had  a  hand  in 
the  revision  of  the  play. 

Rolfe  however  agrees  with  Furnivall  and  Dowden  — 

That  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew"  is  Shakespeare's  adapta- 
tion not  of  the  original  "Taming  of  a  Shrew"  but  of  an  enlarged 
version  of  that  play  made  by  some  unknown  writer.  As  Furni- 
vall puts  it,  "An  adapter  who  used  at  least  ten  bits  of  Marlowe 
in  it,  first  recast  the  old  play,  and  then  Shakspere  put  into  the 
recast  the  scenes  in  which  Katherina,  Petruchio,  and  Grumio 
appear."  ^ 

Yet  Yardley,  realizing  the  fact  that  the  classical  learning 
displayed  by  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  is 
fatal  to  the  actor's  claims  to  authorship,  boldly  asserts  that 
"there  are  no  signs  of  classical  learning  in  his  great  plays"; 
that  "he  had  neither  read  nor  was  capable  of  reading  Latin, 
and  had  never  read  Greek" ;  and  labors  to  show  that  whatever 
classical  learning  there  is  in  the  works  could  have  been  ac- 
quired without  a  knowledge  of  Greek  or  Latin.  It  is  curious, 
as  showing  the  straits  into  which  the  devotees  of  the  actor 
have  been  driven,  that  not  far  from  the  time  that  Yardley 
wrote,  Churton  Collins,  in  his  "Had  Shakespeare  read  the 
Greek  Tragedies.^"  contended  in  the  "Fortnightly  Review" 
that  the  author  of  the  works  was  an  accomplished  Latin 
scholar.  For  this  Collins  was  blamed  by  the  "Daily  News" 
for  "strengthening  the  hands  of  the  Baconians."  Yardley 
discloses  his  animus  by  the  following  unwise  admission, 
"All  these  attempts  to  give  erudition  to  Shakespeare  seem 
to  lead  to  his  being  converted  to  Bacon.  Otherwise  I  should 
not  trouble  myself  much  about  it."  This  is  the  usual  at- 
titude of  the  orthodox  Stratfordian  toward  the  "Baconian 
heretic."  ^ 

^  William  J .  Rolfe,  A.M.,  Shakespeare's  Comedy  of  the  Taming  of  the  Shrezv^ 
p.  lo.  New  York,  1881. 

2  Notes  and  Queries,  vol.  12,  p.  191. 

128 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

We  will  not  weary  the  reader  further  with  the  worthless 
and  misleading  speculations  of  other  commentators  on  this 
play,  but  remark  that  the  anonymous  play  printed  in  1594, 
but  which  had  been  then  known  at  least  five  years,  was  pub- 
lished by  the  Shakespeare  Society  in  1844,  several  years  before 
Bacon's  authorship  was  thought  of,  and  a  copy  is  now  before 
the  writer.  It  not  only  presents  the  same  plot,  but  verbally 
agrees  in  more  than  two  hundred  instances,  showing  conclu- 
sively that  its  author  was  the  same  as  the  author  of  the  Folio 
play. 

The  Comedy  of  Errors  also  perplexes  the  commentators, 
who  shy  at  so  many  evidently  early  works  of  their  author.  It 
was  first  printed  in  the  Folio  of  1623.  Says  Knight:  — 

The  "Comedy  of  Errors"  was  clearly  one  of  Shakspere's  very 
early  plays.  It  was  probably  untouched  by  its  author  after  its 
first  production. 

For  evidence  of  its  early  date  we  must  depend,  he  con- 
tinues, — 

Upon  the  great  prevalence  of  that  measure  which  was  known 
to  our  language  as  early  as  the  time  of  Chaucer,  by  the  name  of 
"rime  doggerel."  This  peculiarity  is  found  only  in  three  of  our 
author's  plays,  —  "Loves  Labour's  Lost,"  "The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,"  and  in  the  "Comedy  of  Errors."  But  this  measure  was 
a  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  early  English  drama.  .  .  . 
There  cannot,  we  think,  be  a  stronger  proof  that  the  "Comedy 
of  Errors  "  was  an  early  play  of  our  author,  than  its  agreement, 
in  this  particular,  with  the  models  which  Shakspere  found  in  his 
almost  immediate  predecessors. 

He  then  alludes  to  the  difficulty  experienced  by  commenta- 
tors in  according  to  the  actor  so  wide  a  knowledge  of  classical 
authors  as  the  play  discloses.    He  says:  — 

The  speech  of  ^geon  in  the  first  scene 

A  heavier  task  could  not  have  been  Impos'd 
Than  I  to  speak  my  griefs  unspeakable 

is,  they  admit,  an  imitation  of  the  "Infandum,  Regina,  jubes 

129 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

renovare  dolorem"  of  Virgil.  "Thou  art  an  elm,  my  husband,  I 
a  vine,"  is  in  Catullus,  Ovid,  and  Horace.  The  "owls"  that 
"suck  the  breath"  are  the  "stringes"  of  Ovid.  The  apostrophe 
of  Dromio  to  the  virtues  of  beating  —  "when  I  am  cold  he 
heats  me  with  beating,"  etc.  The  burning  of  the  conjuror's  beard 
is  an  incident  copied  from  the  twelfth  book  of  Virgil's  "-^neid." 
Lastly,  in  the  original  copy  of  the  "Comedy  of  Errors,"  the  An- 
tipholus  of  Ephesus  is  called  Sereptus  —  a  corruption  of  the  epi- 
thet by  which  one  of  the  twin  brothers  in  Plautus  is  distinguished. 
"If  the  poet  had  not  dipped  into  the  original  Plautus,"  says 
Capell,  "  Surreptus  had  never  stood  in  his  copy,  the  translation 
having  no  such  agnomen."  Steevens  says:  "Shakspere  might 
have  taken  the  general  plan  of  the  Comedy  from  a  translation 
of  the  'Menaechmi'  of  Plautus  by  W.  W.  in  1595."  Ritson 
thinks  he  was  under  no  obligation  to  this  translation,  but  that 
the  "Comedy  of  Errors"  "was  not  originally  his,  but  proceeded 
from  some  inferior  playwright,  who  was  capable  of  the  *Men- 
sechmi'  without  the  help  of  a  translation."  ^ 

The  first  record  of  a  performance  of  this  play  was  at  Gray's 
Inn  in  1594,  Francis  Bacon  being  master  of  ceremonies;  but 
an  allusion  in  it  to  France  "making  war  against  her  heir," 
which  Theobald  suggests  refers  to  the  war  begun  in  1589 
against  Henry  of  Navarre,  heir  to  the  throne,  might  indicate 
an  earlier  date.  This  suggestion,  however,  is  clearly  without 
force.  Boas  thinks  that  "  1591  may  be  set  down  as  the  approxi- 
mate date  of  the  play,"  and  that  its  author  "may  have  worked 
upon  some  earlier  stage  version,  perhaps  'The  Historie  of 
Error,'  acted  at  Hampton  Court  in  1576."   While  he  says, — 

The  comparison  of  the  "Comedy  of  Errors"  with  the  "Men- 
3echmi"  illustrates  admirably  the  advantages  of  Shakspere's 
over  Plautus'  method,  the  poverty  of  its  dialogue,  and  the  thin- 
ness of  its  portraiture  prove  the  hand  of  the  immature  artist,  ^ — 

Says  Gervinus :  — 

In  the  "Comedy  of  Errors  "  that  great  feature  of  Shakespear- 
ian profoundness,  that  power  of  obtaining  a  deep  inner  signiii- 

^  Knight,  Comedies,  vol.  i,  pp.  211-14. 

2  Frederick  S.  Boas,  M.A.,  Shakespeare  and  his  Predecessors,  pp.  168-172. 
New  York,  1910. 

130 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

cance  from  the  most  superficial  material,  seems  to  be  before  us 
in  this  one  early  example,  in  which  the  fine  spiritual  application, 
which  the  poet  has  extracted  from  the  material,  strikes  us  as 
all  the  more  remarkable,  the  more  coarse  and  bold  the  outwork 
of  the  poet.^ 

Lee  assigns  to  this  play  a  date  next  to  the  "Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona'' ;  he  says,  — 

Shakespeare  next  tried  his  hand  in  the  "  Comedy  of  Errors."  ^ 

Love's  Labours  Lost,^  published  in  1598,  and  said  to  be 
"newly  corrected  and  augmented,"  is  equally  troublesome  to 
commentators.  Knight,  less  disposed  to  shirk  the  danger  of 
accrediting  his  idol  with  early  authorship,  takes  up  this  play 
as  follows :  — 

As  no  edition  of  the  comedy,  before  it  was  corrected  ajid  aug- 
mented, is  known  to  exist,  we  have  no  proof  that  the  few  allu- 
sions to  temporary  circumstances,  which  are  supposed  in  some 
degree  to  fix  the  date  of  the  play,  may  not  apply  to  the  augmented 
copy  only.  Thus,  when  Moth  refers  to  "the  dancing  horse,"  the 
fact  that  Bank's  horse  first  appeared  in  London  in  1589,  does 
not  prove  that  the  original  play  might  not  have  been  written 
before  1589. 

After  citing  several  other  vital  objections  to  the  theory  of  a 
later  authorship  of  this  play,  he  concludes :  — 

Lastly,  the  mask  in  the  fifth  act,  where  the  king  and  his  lords 
appear  in  Russian  habits,  and  the  allusion  to  Muscovites  which 
this  mask  produces,  are  supposed  by  Warburton  to  have  been 
suggested  by  the  public  concern  for  the  settlement  of  a  treaty 
of  commerce  with  Russia  in  1591.  But  the  learned  commentator 
overlooks  a  passage  in  Hall's  "Chronicle,"  which  shows  that  a 
mask  of  Muscovites  was  a  court  recreation  in  the  time  of  Henry 
VHL  In  the  extrinsic  evidence,  therefore,  which  this  comedy  sup- 
plies, there  is  nothing  whatever  to  disprove  the  theory  which  we 
entertain,  that,  before  it  had  been  "corrected  and  augmented," 
"Love's  Labour's  Lost"  was  one  of  the  plays  produced  by  Shak- 

^  Gervinus,  Shakespeare  Commentaries ,  p.  138. 

2  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  53. 

3  We  believe  this  form  of  the  title  to  be  correct,  though  unusual. 

131 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

spere  about  1589.   The  intrinsic  evidence  appears  to  us  entirely 
to  support  this  opinion.^ 

Says  Gervinus :  — 

The  comedy  of  "Love's  Labour's  Lost"  belongs  indisputably 
to  the  earliest  dramas  of  the  poet,  and  will  be  almost  of  the  same 
date  as  the  "Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona."  The  peculiarities  of 
Shakespeare's  youthful  pieces  are  perhaps  most  accumulated  in 
this  play.  The  reiterated  mention  of  mythological  and  historic 
personages,  the  air  of  learning,  the  Italian  and  Latin  expressions, 
which  here,  it  must  be  admitted,  serve  a  comic  end;  the  older 
English  versification,  the  numerous  doggerel  verses,  and  the 
rhymes  more  frequent  than  anywhere  else,  and  extending  over 
almost  half  of  the  play;  all  this  places  this  work  among  the  earlier 
efforts  of  the  poet.^ 

Furnivall  contends  that  "Love's  Labours  Lost"  was  his 
earliest  play,  and  "The  Tempest"  his  last,  basing  his  opinion 
upon  the  relative  number  of  rhymed  and  blank  verse  lines  in 
each.^  While  we  dissent  from  this  method  of  proof  as  an  im- 
perfect one,  to  say  the  least,  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  was 
written  at  a  very  early  period  of  its  author's  career,  may  we 
not  premise  soon  after  returning  from  France  in  1579.^  And 
may  it  not  be  one  of  the  comedies  mentioned  by  Immerito  to 
Harvey? 

The  editors  of  the  Folio  Reprint  say:  — 

Internally  the  play  bears  evidence  of  being  written  in  the  first, 
or  rhyming  period,  and  revised  in  maturer  years.  It  is  probably 
the  earliest  of  the  comedies,  as  is  shown  by  its  poetic  rather  than 
its  dramatic  qualities,  its  balancing  of  characters,  and  its  sketchy 
characterization.^ 

And  the  poet  Coleridge:  — 

The  characters  in  this  play  are  either  impersonated  out  of 
Shakespeare's  own  multiformity  by  imaginative  self-position, 

^  Knight,  Comedies,  vol.  i,  p.  75,  et  seq. 

*  Gervinus,  Shakespeare  Commentaries,  p.  1641. 

3  Frank  J.  Furnivall,  M.A.,  The  Succession  oj  Shakspere's  Worksy  p.  xxii. 
London,  1874. 

*  Folio  Reprint,  Introduction,  vol.  3. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

or  out  of  such  as  a  country  town  and  school-boy's  observation 
might  supply  —  the  frequency  of  the  rhymes,  the  sweetness  as 
well  as  the  smoothness  of  the  metre,  and  the  number  of  acute 
and  fancifully  illustrated  aphorisms  are  all  they  ought  to  be  in  a 
poet's  youth. ^ 

Says  Lee :  — 

To  "Love's  Labour's  Lost"  may  reasonably  be  assigned  pri- 
ority in  point  of  time  of  all  Shakespeare's  dramatic  productions.  ^ 

Phillipps's  opinion  of  this  play  is  thus  expressed:  — 

A  complete  appreciation  of  "Love's  Labour's  Lost"  was  re- 
served for  the  present  century,  several  modern  psychological 
critics  of  eminence  having  successfully  vindicated  its  title  to  a 
position  amongst  the  best  productions  of  the  great  dramatist.^ 

Yet  Collier  says  that  in  this  play  the 

Poet  plays  the  fool  egregiously,  for  the  whole  play  is  a  very 
silly  one.^ 

AndHerford:  — 

The  original  version  of  "Love's  Labour's  Lost"  was  among 
the  earliest  of  Shakespeare's  original  plays,  if  not,  as  is  generally 
supposed  the  first  of  all.^ 

From  the  time  of  Rowe,  who  published  the  first  life  of  the 
actor,  having  persistently  gathered  every  item  relating  to  him, 
recorded  and  traditional,  and  who,  living  nearer  to  his  time 
than  more  modern  writers,  had  a  clearer  view  of  the  man  and 
his  antecedents  than  they,  but  was  unable  to  account  for  the 
vast  learning  displayed  in  the  earlier  works  ascribed  to  him, 
many  critics  have  held  the  untenable  theory  that  he  attained 
the  pinnacle  of  literary  excellence  by  virtue  of  inborn  genius, 
without  that  education,  training,  and  experience  hitherto 

1  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  vol.  iv,  p.  79.  New  York, 
1864. 

*  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  50. 

»  Phillipps,  Memoranda,  p.  17.   London,  1879. 

*  Collier,  Short  Views,  etc.,  of  the  English  Stage,  p.  125.  London,  1699. 
^  Herford,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  i.  New  York,  1904. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

deemed  so  necessary  to  mankind  in  the  accomplishment  of 
great  works  of  art.  Respecting  the  drama  of  Pericles,  Rowe 
was  dubious.    He  says:  — 

There  is  no  good  Reason  to  believe  that  the  greatest  part  of 
that  play  was  not  written  by  him.^ 

This  has  been  another  bone  of  contention  among  devotees, 
some  of  whom  have  even  had  a  fling  at  the  painstaking  Rowe 
for  his  too  much  meddling  with  things  which  better  had  been 
overlooked.  The  same  differences  of  opinion,  and  the  same 
indulgence  in  assumptions,  are  evident  in  their  treatment  of 
this  play. 

Malone  declares  that 

"Pericles"  was  the  entire  work  of  Shakespeare,  and  one  of  his 
earliest  compositions. 

AndRolfe:  — 

It  is  now,  however,  generally  agreed  by  critics  that  the  first  two 
acts  of  the  play,  together  with  the  brothel  scenes  in  the  fourth 
act,  were  written  by  some  other  author  than  Shakespeare. 

Steevens  says:  — 

I  must  acquit  even  the  irregular  and  lawless  Shakespeare  of 
having  constructed  the  fabric  of  the  drama,  though  he  has  cer- 
tainly bestowed  some  decoration  on  its  parts. 

Hallam  guesses  that 

"Pericles"  was  by  some  inferior  hand,  perhaps,  by  a  personal 
friend  of  Shakespeare's,  and  that  he,  without  remodelling  the 
plot,  undertook  to  correct  and  improve  it,  beginning  with  slight 
additions,  and  his  mind  warming  as  he  proceeded,  breaking  out 
towards  the  close  of  the  drama  with  its  accustomed  vigour  and 
abundance. 

And  Collier:  — 

We  apprehend  that  Shakespeare  founded  a  drama  on  the  story 
in  the  possession  of  one  of  the  companies  performing  in  London, 
and  that,  in  accordance  with  the  ordinary  practice  of  the  time, 

1  N.  Rowe,  Esq.,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  vii.  London, 
1709. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

he  made  additions  to  and  improvements  in  it,  and  procured  it 
to  be  represented  at  the  Globe  Theatre. 

In  a  note  he  continues  his  guesses  in  this  futile  manner: — 

By  a  list  of  the  theatrical  apparel,  formerly  belonging  to  Alleyn, 
and  preserved  at  Dulwich  College,  it  appears  that  he  had  prob- 
ably acted  in  a  play  called  "Pericles."  This  might  be  the  play 
which  Shakespeare  altered  and  improved.^ 

White,  speaking  of  the  origin  of  the  drama,  "The  Romance 
of  AppoUonius  Tyrias,"  possibly  written  in  the  sixth  century, 
and  a  version  by  Gower  in  the  eighth  book  of  "Confessio 
Amantis,"  as  well  as  a  version  by  Lawrence  Twine  (1576), 
concludes  that :  — 

By  whom  and  when  the  play  was  written  is  not  to  be  so  easily 
discussed.  The  external  evidence  upon  which  it  may  be  attrib- 
uted to  Shakespeare  is  not  strong.  In  fact,  it  resolves  itself 
merely  into  the  presence  of  his  name  upon  the  title  page  of  two 
editions  published  during  his  life,  and  the  absence  of  any  known 
denial  of  the  authorship  by  him,  or  on  his  part. 

Quoting  Dryden's  line  — 

Shakespeare's  own  Muse  his  Pericles  first  bore  — 

and  discarding  it,  he  continues :  — 

There  is  really  no  other  external  evidence  of  Shakespeare's 
authorship  of  the  play  than  the  presence  of  his  name  on  the  old 
title-page;  and  that  is  of  no  weight.  The  same  exists  as  to  his  hav- 
ing written  "Sir  John  Oldcastle,"  "The  London  Prodigal,"  and 
"A  Yorkshire  Tragedy,"  plays  in  which  no  competent  critic  has 
been  able  to  trace  even  his  prentice  hand.  .  .  .  Considering  all 
the  evidence,  it  therefore  seems  impossible  to  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that  "Pericles"  is  a  play,  which,  planned  and  mostly 
or  wholly  written  by  another  dramatist,  Shakespeare  enriched 
throughout  for  the  benefit  of  the  theatre  which  owned  it.  .  .  . 
When  "Pericles"  was  originally  written  we  do  not  know;  but 
it  was  quite  surely  sometime  before  Shakespeare  became  a  play- 
wright. ^ 

1  J.  Payne  Collier,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  viii,  p.  203.  New  York, 
1853.    Cf.  Memoirs  of  Edward  Alleyn,  p.  21.   Shakespeare  Society,  London. 

2  Richard  Grant  White,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  301-05. 

I3S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  admission  by  White  that  the  presence  of  a  name  on  a 
title-page  is  of  no  weight  is  so  true  that  it  should  be  noted. 
Other  so-called  authorities  have  asserted  this  in  their  efforts 
to  discredit  the  authorship  of  plays  not  in  the  Canon;  but  they 
now  balk  when  this  argument,  eminently  true,  is  made  use  of 
by  Baconians.  His  admission  of  the  early  date  of  the  play  is 
noticeable. 

Lee,  with  his  usual  annoying  confidence,  asserts :  — 

Although  Shakespeare's  powers  showed  no  signs  of  exhaustion, 
he  reverted  in  the  year  following  the  colossal  effort  of  "Lear" 
(1607)  to  his  earlier  habit  of  collaboration,  and  with  another's 
aid  composed  two  dramas  —  "Timon  of  Athens"  and  "Pericles." 
There  seems  some  ground  for  the  belief  that  Shakespeare's  co- 
adjutor in  "TImon"  was  George  Wilkes  —  at  any  rate,  Wilkes 
may  safely  be  credited  with  portions  of  "Pericles."  .  .  .  The  pres- 
ence of  a  third  hand,  of  inferior  merit  to  Wilkes,  has  been  sus- 
pected, and  to  this  collaborator  (perhaps  William  Rowley)  are 
best  assigned  the  three  scenes  of  purposeless  coarseness  which 
take  place  in  or  before  a  brothel.^ 

The  value  of  such  criticism  may  be  seen  by  this  from 
Phillipps:  — 

There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  Shakespeare,  who  was  in 
early  life,  and  perhaps  to  some  extent  afterwards,  the  Johannes 
Factotum  of  the  theatre,  contributed  numerous  fragments  to 
the  drama  of  others.  There  Is  not,  however,  the  slightest  con- 
temporary hint  that  he  ever  entered  into  the  joint  authorship 
of  a  play  with  anyone  else,  and  such  a  notion  is  directly  opposed 
to  the  express  testimony  of  Leonard  Dlgges.^ 

In  his  "Memoir  of  Ben  Jonson,"  Proctor  accuses  the  crit- 
ics of  "Pericles"  from  Pope  to  Gifford  of  condemning  it  un- 
read. He  declares  that 

From  "Lear"  down  to  "Pericles,"  there  ought  to  be  no  mis- 
take between  Shakespeare  and  other  writers. 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  242,  243. 
2  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  11,  p.  409. 

136 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

TiMON  OF  Athens,  based  on  Plutarch's  "Lives,"  and  first 
printed  in  the  FoUo,  which  has  already  been  alluded  to,  has 
also  provoked  speculation.  The  editors  of  the  late  reprint  of 
the  First  Folio  in  their  introduction  to  it  remark  that:  — 

The  play  that  has  come  down  to  us  as  Shakespeare's  is  itself 
of  doubtful  origin.  That  it  is  not  all  his  is  now  the  accepted  be- 
lief, and  traces  of  the  lost  earlier  text  may  possibly  be  imbedded 
in  the  present  one.  The  various  theories  of  authorship  contem- 
plate the  following:  (i)  That  Shakespeare  rewrote  the  older 
drama.  (2)  That  Shakespeare's  play,  left  unfinished,  was  com- 
pleted by  other  hands.  (3)  That  a  combination  of  the  two  fore- 
going seems  likely.  (4)  That  Shakespeare  and  another  author 
worked  together.  (5)  That  the  Folio  editors  rewrought  the  play 
from  the  leading  character's  stage  parts.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
record  of  its  having  been  performed  during  Shakespeare's  life- 
time, and  no  early  Quarto  printing.  Evidence  must  rest  inter- 
nally. Coleridge  has  characterized  it  as  an  "after-vibration  of 
^  Hamlet. '"1 

Knight  declares  that  the  author  was  indebted  more  to  Lu- 
cian  than  to  Plutarch,  and  that  his  work  was  a  remodeling  of 
an  older  play  which  belonged 

to  the  period  when  our  poet  began  to  write  for  the  stage  —  a 
period  when  the  public  ear  was  not  familiarized  to  the  flowing 
harmony  of  his  own  verse,  or  the  regular  cadences  of  Marlowe's 
and  Greene's. 

Boas  asserts  that 

"Timon  of  Athens,"  as  it  stands,  cannot  represent  a  complete, 
genuine  Shakespearian  work.  The  contrast  between  the  noble 
verse  and  imagery  in  the  finer  scenes,  and  the  halting  metre  and 
insipid  dialogue  of  other  parts,  is  too  striking  to  be  entirely  at- 
tributed to  the  dramatist  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers.  Yet 
these  inequalities  have  been  exaggerated,  and  all  attempts  to 
rigidly  separate  the  genuine  from  the  spurious  parts  of  the  work, 
must  be  viewed  with  suspicion. ^ 

^  Charlotte  Porter,  H.  A.  Clark,  The  Complete  Works  of  Shakespeare,  vol. 
X,  Introduction.  Tymon,  London,  n.d. 

2  Boas,  Shakespeare  and  his  Predecessors,  p.  495.  New  York,  1910. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

King  John.  This  play,  under  the  title  of  "The  Troublesome 
Reign  of  King  John,"  published  anonymously  in  quarto  in 
iSqi,  and  included  by  Meres  in  his  list  of  "Shakespeare"  plays 
in  1598,  was  republished  in  161 1,  this  time  bearing  on  its 
title-page  "written  by  W.  Sh.,"  and  again  in  1622,  ''W.  Shake- 
speare," leaves  no  room  for  us  to  question  its  identity  with  the 
play  as  we  have  it  in  the  Folio,  though  comparison  with  the 
previous  editions,  even  that  of  the  year  before,  published  six 
years  after  the  actor's  death,  shows  that  it  had  been  improved 
by  revision,  and  considerably  enlarged,  unmistakably  by  its 
original  author.  We  will  see  what  the  critics  say  of  it. 

Phillipps,  although  he  assumes  that  Meres  "had  been  fa- 
voured with  access  to  the  unpublished  writings  of  Drayton 
and  Shakespeare,"^  ignores  his  evidence  and  says:  — 

It  is  noticed  by  Meres  in  1598,  and  that  it  continued  to  be 
popular  until  161 1,  may  be  inferred  from  the  republication  in 
that  year  of  the  foundation  play,  "The  Troublesome  Raigne 
of  King  John"  as  "written  by  W.  Sh.,"  a  clearly  fraudulent  at- 
tempt to  palm  off  the  latter  in  the  place  of  the  work  of  the  great 
dramatist.^ 

Boas,  calling  attention  to  the  editions  of  1591  and  161 1  of  the 
"Troublesome  Raigne,"  and  calling  this  an  older  work,  says : — 

Shakespeare  entirely  followed  this  older  work  in  the  historical 
matter,  and  there  is  scarcely  more  than  one  passage  to  be  pointed 
out  with  certainty  in  which  it  may  be  concluded  that  he  con- 
sulted the  Chronicles  besides.  Artistically  considered,  he  took 
in  the  outward  design  of  the  piece,  blended  both  parts  into  one, 
adhered  to  the  leading  features  of  the  characters,  and  finished 
them  with  finer  touches.^ 

Turning  to  Lee,  we  learn  exactly  how  the  case  stands.  He 
speaks  in  this  ex-cathedra  fashion :  — 

To  1594  must  also  be  assigned  "King  John."  .  .  .  The  fraudu- 
lent practice  of  crediting  Shakespeare  with  valueless  plays  from 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  172.  ^  /^^"^.^  vol.  11,  p.  285. 

^  Boas,  Shakespeare  and  his  Predecessors,  p.  353. 

138 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  pens  of  comparatively  dull-witted  contemporaries  was  in 
vogue  among  enterprising  traders  in  literature  both  early  and  late 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  worthless  old  play  of  "King 
John"  was  attributed  to  Shakespeare  in  the  reissues  of  1611 
and  1622.^ 

While  referring,  as  also  does  Boas,  to  an  old  moral  and  al- 
legorical play,  called  "  King  Johan,"  by  Bishop  Bale,  which 
one  says  probably,  and  the  other  positively,  the  author  of  "  King 
John"  could  not  have  known,  Lee  takes  the  ground  that  the 
"Troublesome  Raigne  was  by  certain  unknown  authors,"  but 
speaks  highly  of  it,  pointing  out  that 

the  characters  are  well  copied  from  real  life  or  taken  from  his- 
tory; and  they  appear  upon  the  stage  only  in  connection  with 
the  incidents  upon  which  the  interest  of  the  play  depends.  It 
is  in  spirit  and  form  absolutely  dramatic,  though  not  highly  so, 
and  is  as  purely  an  historical  play  as  that  which  succeeded  and 
eclipsed  it. 

Further  he  says :  — 

Numerous  instances  of  parallel  passages  in  which  the  thought 
,  is  similar,  and  the  words  sometimes  the  same,  are  cited  in  the 
Notes,  and  will  show  the  reader  that  Shakespeare  worked  with 
the  old  play  in  his  head  if  not  in  his  hand  —  hence  some  English 
editors  in  the  last  century,  and  some  German  commentators  in 
this,  have  thought  that  "The  Troublesome  Reign"  was  an  early 
work  of  Shakespeare's. 

Not  accepting  this  view  he  concludes  that :  — 

It  was  probably  produced  two  or  three  years  before  the  date 
of  the  first  edition  known,  as  at  that  date  it  was  a  new  play,  and 
in  1587-88,  the  English  hatred  of  Rome  and  Spain  was  stimu- 
lated by  the  approach  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  It  has  been  con- 
jectured with  great  probability  that  Greene,  Peele,  and  Marlowe 
were  concerned  in  the  composition  of  this  old  History,  and  it  is 
barely  possible  that  Shakespeare,  who  seems  to  have  begun  his 
career  as  their  humble  co-laborer  contributed  something  to  it, 
as  like  in  style  to  what  they  wrote  as  he  could  make  it.^ 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  69,  181. 

2  Lee^  ji^g  jforks  of  Shakespeare,  vol.  v,  pp.  10-15.    London,  1906. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

We  have  made  this  long  quotation  as  illustrating  the  un- 
bridled assumptions  of  Shakespeare  editors.  There  is  not  a 
particle  of  evidence  that  the  Stratford  actor  ever  was  an 
"humble  co-laborer"  with  any  one,  nor  any  foundation  for 
even  a  guess  that  Greene,  Peele,  or  Marlowe  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  play  of  "  King  John."  When  Meres,  of  whom  all 
speak  as  the  highest  of  contemporary  authorities,  placed  "The 
Troublesome  Reign"  in  his  list  of  "Shakespeare"  plays,  he 
did  so  from  knowledge,  and  his  authority  is  preferable  to  that 
of  those  who  insult  our  intelligence  by  obtruding  their  guesses 
upon  us  when  we  want  facts,  or,  at  least,  something  having  the 
colorof  evidence.  Later  we  shall  discuss  the  relation  of  Greene, 
Peele,  and  Marlowe  to  the  plays.  The  constant  reference  to 
these  three  persons  is  significant. 

Henry  V.   This  drama  presents  a  problem  respecting  the 
date  of  its  composition  similar  to  those  already  mentioned. 
Says  Rolfe :  — 

Shakespeare  took  the  leading  incidents  of  his  "Henry  IV," 
and  "Henry  V,"  from  an  anonymous  play  entitled  "The  Famous 
Victories  cf  Henry  Fift"  which  was  written  as  early  as  1588. 
He  drew  his  historical  materials  from  Holinshed's  "Chronicles."  ^ 

It  was  entered  May  14,  1594. 

It  is  a  circumstance  deserving  of  remark  that  not  one  of  the 
title-pages  of  the  quarto  editions  of  "Henry  V"  attributes  the 
authorship  of  the  play  to  Shakespeare.  It  was  printed  several 
times  during  the  life  of  the  poet,  but  in  no  instance  with  his  name. 
The  inference  seems  to  be  that  "Henry  V  "  was  originally  pro- 
duced by  Shakespeare  in  a  comparatively  incomplete  state,  and 
that  large  portions  contained  in  the  folio,  and  of  which  no  trace 
can  be  pointed  out  in  the  quartos  were  added  at  a  subsequent 
date.2 

1  William  J.  Rolfe,  A.M.,  Shakespeare's  History  of  King  Henry  the  Fifth,  pp. 
10,  II.  New  York,  n.  d. 

*  George  Long  Duyckinck,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  iv,  p. 
341.  Philadelphia,  n.  d. 

140 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

This  is  an  interesting  admission  but  militates  against  the 
authorship  by  the  actor.  Any  one  who  studies  these  additions, 
made  long  after  his  death,  must  admit  that  they  were  the 
work  of  the  original  author  of  the  play.  As  half  the  Quartos 
were  printed  anonymously  it  is  not  "  deserving  of  remark " 
that  this  one  was. 

Nash  in  his  "Pierce  Penniless,"  1592^  has  the  follow- 
ing:— 

What  a  glorious  thing  it  is  to  have  "Henry  the  Fift"  repre- 
sented on  the  stage,  leading  the  French  King  prisoner,  and  forc- 
ing both  him  and  the  Dolphin  to  sweare  fealtie. 

Says  Lee  in  his  usual  dogmatic  fashion:  — 

In  1597,  Shakespeare  turned  once  more  to  English  history. 
From  Holinshed's  "Chronicle"  and  from  a  valueless  but  very 
popular  piece,  "The  Famous  Victories  of  Henry  V,"  which  was 
repeatedly  acted  between  1588  and  1595,  he  worked  up  with 
splendid  energy  two  plays  on  the  reign  of  Henry  IV. ^ 

Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  is  no  doubt  correct  that  the  author  of 
this  play 

Designed  a  regular  connexion  of  the  dramatic  histories  from 
Richard  the  Second  to  Henry  the  Fifth. 

Says  Knight,  quoting  this  remark:  — 

Shakspere,  indeed,  found  the  stage  in  possession  of  a  rude 
drama  "The  famous  Victories  of  Henry  V,"  upon  the  founda- 
tion of  which  he  constructed  not  only  his  two  parts  of  "Henry 
IV  "  but  his  "Henry  V."  That  old  play  was  acted  prior  to  1588. 
It  was  entered  on  the  Stationer's  books  in  1594,  and  was  per- 
formed by  Henslowe's  company  in  1595.  Mr.  Collier  thinks  it  was 
written  soon  after  1580. 

It  was  printed  in  1598  and  in  1600  appeared  as  "The  Chron- 
icle History  of  Henry  the  Fift."  Both  these  plays  were  from 
the  same  press,  the  latter  preserving  much  of  the  form  and 
substance  of  the  former  largely  rewritten.  But  Knight  finally 

*  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespearef  p.  167. 

141 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

found  how  untenable  was  the  position  he  had  adopted  and 
gives  us  his  maturer  opinion,  that  the  old  plays  were  the  work 
of  the  author  of  the  later  ones.  These  are  his  words :  — 

The  "Richard  II"  and  the  "Henry  IV"  were  not  separated 
from  the  "Henry  V"  by  any  long  interval  in  their  performance 
—  they  required  no  Prologue  for  this  reason  to  hold  them  all 
together.  The  "Henry  V"  was  the  triumphal  completion  of  the 
story  which  these  had  begun.  But  if  the  disastrous  continuation 
of  the  story  had  been  the  work  of  another  man,  we  doubt  whether 
Shakspere  would  have  desired  thus  emphatically  to  carry  for- 
ward the  connexion.  .  .  .  Malone  holds  that,  to  a  certain  extent, 
they  were  connected  in  their  authorship,  and  that  this  connexion 
is  implied  in  the  address  to  the  favour  of  the  audience  "for  the 
sake  of  these  old  and  popular  dramas  which  are  so  closely  con- 
nected with  it;  and  in  the  composition  of  which,  as  they  had  for 
many  years  been  exhibited,  he  had  so  considerable  a  shareJ^  This 
is  the  point  we  desire  to  examine.  We  hold  that  Shakspere  asso- 
ciates these  dramas  with  his  own  undoubted  work,  because  he 
was  their  sole  author.^ 

A  second  edition  followed  in  1602,  and  a  third  in  1608,  all 
anonymous.  It  did  not  appear  again  in  print  until  it  was 
published  in  the  Folio,  again  rewritten  and  enlarged  to  nearly 
double  its  former  length.  Says  Knight :  — 

Not  only  is  the  play  thus  augmented  by  the  additions  of  the 
choruses  and  new  scenes,  but  there  is  scarcely  a  speech,  from  the 
first  scene  to  the  last,  which  is  not  elaborated.  In  this  elaboration 
the  old  materials  are  very  carefully  used  up;  but  they  are  so 
thoroughly  refitted  and  dovetailed  with  what  is  new,  that  the 
operation  can  only  be  compared  with  the  work  of  a  skilful  archi- 
tect, who,  having  an  ancient  mansion  to  enlarge  and  beautify, 
with  a  strict  regard  to  its  original  character,  preserves  every 
feature  of  the  structure,  under  other  combinations,  with  such 
marvelous  skill,  that  no  unity  of  principle  is  violated,  and  the 
whole  has  the  effect  of  a  restoration  in  which  the  new  and  the 
old  are  indistinguishable.  Unless  we  were  to  reprint  the  original 
copy,  page  by  page,  with  the  present  text,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  convey  a  satisfactory  notion  of  the  exceeding  care  with  which 
this  play  has  been  recast.^ 

^  Knight,  Histories,  vol.  11,  p.  403.  *  Ibid.y  vol.  i,  p.  309. 

142 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

That  "The  Famous  Victories"  does  not  bear  the  same  rela- 
tion to  "The  Qironicle  History"  as  the  latter  does  to  "Henry 
V"  of  the  Folio,  is  simply  an  opinion  as  fanciful  and  unreliable 
as  the  many  we  have  quoted,  and  that  in  the  flush  of  the 
author's  maturer  powers  he  rewrote  his  youthful  works  seems 
the  more  reasonable  view. 

Henry  VI  is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  the  futile  manner 
in  which  Stratfordian  critics  test  the  patience  of  their  readers. 
This  drama  in  three  parts,  or  really  three  separate  dramas, 
was  first  printed  in  the  Folio. 

Let  us  first  listen  to  Malone,  the  pioneer  in  this  sort  of 
criticism :  — 

My  hypothesis  ...  is  that  "the  first  part  of  King  Henry  VI," 
as  it  now  appears  .  .  .  was  the  entire  or  nearly  the  entire  produc- 
tion of  some  ancient  dramatist;  that  "The  Whole  Contention 
of  the  two  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,"  etc.,  written  prob- 
ably before  the  year  1590,  and  printed  in  quarto,  in  1600,  was 
also  the  composition  of  some  writer  who  preceded  Shakspear; 
and  that  from  this  piece,  which  is  in  two  parts  —  our  poet 
formed  the  two  plays  entitled,  "The  Second  and  Third  Parts 
of  King  Henry,"  as  they  appear  in  the  first  folio  edition  of  his 
works. 

The  first  notice  of  this  play  that  we  have  is  in  Henslowe's 
"Diary  "which  records  its  production  on  the  3dof  March,  1591- 
92.^  In  the  same  year  Thomas  Nash  makes  a  quotation  from 
the  first  part  of  the  play  which  clearly  identifies  it.  From  the 
third  part,  Robert  Greene  makes  a  quotation  in  the  same  year, 
1592,  which  shows  that  this  part  was  then  in  existence.  Of  the 
second  part  we  have  no  contemporary  notice,  but  it  is  reason- 
able to  assume  that  the  composition  of  the  different  parts 
was  synchronous.  The  editors  of  the  Folio  Reprint  conclude 
that  the  first  part  belongs  to  the  year  1589  or  1590. 

The  first  part  was  unknown  in  print  until  it  appeared  in  the 

1  The  Diary  of  Philip  Henslowe,  p.  22.  London,  1845. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Folio  seven  years  after  the  actor's  death.  The  second  part  was 
published  anonymously  in  1594,  and  twice  in  1600,  and  the 
third  part  in  1595.  In  1 619,  three  years  after  the  actor's  death, 
the  second  and  third  parts  were  published  as  "written  by 
William  Shakespeare  Gent."  The  publisher,  Pavier,  however, 
had  published  works  by  other  writers  under  the  same  title, 
which  renders  this  evidence  of  authorship  valueless,  and  so  we 
are  left  wholly  to  rely  upon  the  fact  that  Heminge  and  Con- 
dell  thought  it  proper  to  admit  them  into  the  Folio.  Let  us 
see  how  the  commentators  handle  this  problem,  and,  first, 
Malone :  — 

*^The  First  Part  of  King  Henry  VI "  may  be  referred  to  the 
year  1589,  or  to  an  earlier  period. 

Yes,  probably  a  considerably  earlier  period,  sufficiently 
earlier  to  bar  the  actor's  authorship  of  it,  but  not  the  author- 
ship of  the  man  who  later  enlarged  and  improved  it. 

He  speaks  thus  of  the  second  and  third  parts :  — 

In  a  Dissertation  annexed  to  these  plays,  I  have  endeavoured 
to  prove  that  they  were  not  written  originally  by  Shakespeare, 
but  formed  by  him  on  two  preceding  dramas.  .  .  .  My  principal 
object  in  that  Dissertation  was,  to  show  that  these  two  old  plays 
which  were  printed  in  1600,  were  written  by  some  writer  or 
writers  who  preceded  Shakespeare,  and  moulded  by  him,  with 
many  alterations  and  additions,  into  the  shape  in  which  they  at 
present  appear,  —  and  if  I  have  proved  that  point,  I  have  ob- 
tained my  end.  .  .  .  Towards  the  end  of  the  Essay  I  have  pro- 
duced a  passage  from  the  old  "King  John"  1591,  from  which  it 
appeared  to  me  probable  that  the  two  elder  dramas  which  com- 
prehend the  greater  part  of  the  reign  of  King  Henry  VI,  were 
written  by  the  author  of  "  King  John,"  whoever  he  was ;  and  some 
circumstances  which  have  lately  struck  me,  confirm  an  opinion 
which  I  formerly  hazarded,  that  Christopher  Marlowe  was  the 
author  of  that  play.  A  passage  in  his  historical  drama  of  "King 
Edward  II,"  which  Dr.  Farmer  has  pointed  out  to  me  since  the 
Dissertation  was  printed,  also  inclines  me  to  believe  with  him, 
that  Marlowe  was  the  author  of  one,  if  not  both,  of  the  old  dramas 
on  which  Shakespeare  formed  the  two  plays,  which  in  the  first 

144 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

folio  edition  of  his  works  are  distinguished  by  the  titles  of  "The 
Second  and  Third  Parts  of  King  Henry  VL"  ^ 

Malone  then  wrote  his  dissertation  without  knowing  any- 
thing about  the  drama  of  "Edward  H/'  yet  to  pose  as  an 
authority  on  the  plays  he  was  criticizing,  he  should  have  fa- 
miliarized himself  with  this  work. 

Anent  this  we  will  listen  to  Phillipps:  — 

Although  Shakespeare  had  exhibited  a  taste  for  poetic  com- 
position before  his  first  departure  from  Stratford-on-Avon,  (?) 
all  traditions  agree  in  the  statement  that  he  was  a  recognized 
actor  before  he  joined  the  ranks  of  the  dramatists. (?)  This  latter 
event  appears  to  have  occurred  on  the  third  of  March,  I592,(?) 
when  a  new  drama,  entitled  "Henry  the  Sixth,"  was  brought 
out  —  under  an  arrangement  with  Henslowe  —  to  whom  no 
doubt  the  author  had  sold  the  play.(?)  ^  In  this  year,  —  Shake- 
speare was  first  rising  into  prominent  notice,  so  that  the  history 
then  produced,  now  known  as  the  "First  Part  of  Henry  the 
Sixth,"  was,  in  all  probability,  his  earliest  complete  dramatic 
work.  .  .  .  The  "Second  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixth,"  must  have 
appeared  soon  afterwards,  but  no  record  of  its  production  on  the 
stage  has  been  preserved.  .  .  .  The  "Third  Part  of  Henry  the 
Sixth"  was  written  previously  to  September,  1592,  and  hence 
it  may  be  concluded  that  all  Shakespeare's  plays  on  the  subject 
of  that  reign,  although  perhaps  subsequently  revised  in  a  few 
places  by  the  author,  were  originally  produced  in  that  year.  ( ?) 

And  he  concludes  that  the  theory 

which  best  agrees  with  the  positive  evidences  is  that  which  con- 
cedes the  authorship  of  the  three  plays  to  Shakespeare.  ^ 

While  we  take  issue  with  Phillipps  on  several  points,  es- 
pecially that  he  was  a  recognized  actor  before  he  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  dramatists,  his  conclusion  that  it  sprung  from 
the  brain  which  conceived  Hamlet  will  stand  the  final  test. 

^  Johnson  and  Steevens,  The  Plays  of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  11,  pp.  243- 
45.   London,  1803. 

'  We  have  marked  some  statements  with  a  query  in  above  quotation  simply 
to  show  how  so  conscientious  a  writer  as  Phillipps  is  forced  to  regale  us  with 
mere  assumptions. 

'  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  97-99- 

14s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Knight,  repudiating  Malone's  ''verbal  subtleties/'  in- 
forms us  that 

Mr.  Collier  says  "that  they  (that  is  all  the  early  parts  of  'Henry 
VP)  were  all  three  in  being  before  Shakspere  begun  to  write  for 
the  stage.^^  Mr.  Hallam,  not  quite  so  strongly  observes:  "It 
seems  probable  that  the  old  plays  —  and  the  'True  Tragedy  of 
Richard  Duke  of  York,'  which  Shakspere  remodelled  in  the 
Second  and  Third  Parts  of  'Henry  V  were  in  great  part  by 
Marlowe.  ...  In  default  of  a  more  probable  claimant  I  have 
sometimes  been  inclined  to  assign  the  'First  Part  of  Henry  VP 
to  Greene."  Such  opinions  render  it  impossible  that  we  should 
dissent  from  Malone's  theory  rashly  and  lightly.  But  still  we 
must  dissent  wholly  and  uncompromisingly.  The  opinion  which 
we  have  not  incautiously  adopted  is,  in  brief,  this,  —  that  the 
three  disputed  plays  are,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  Shak- 
spere's  own  plays;  that  in  connexion  with  "Richard  III"  they 
form  one  complete  whole,  —  the  first  great  Shaksperian  series 
of  Chronicle  Histories ;  —  that  although  in  connection  with  all 
the  Histories,  they  might  each  have  been  in  some  degree  formed 
upon  such  rude  productions  of  the  early  stage  as  the  "Famous 
Victories"  and  "The  True  Tragedy  of  Richard  III,"  the  theory 
of  the  remodelling  of  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  upon  two  other 
plays  of  a  higher  character,  of  which  we  possess  copies,  is  alto- 
gether fallacious,  the  "First  Part  of  the  Contention,"  and  the 
"Richard  Duke  of  York"  (more  commonly  called  the  "Second 
Part  of  the  Contention")  being,  in  fact,  Shakspere's  own  work, 
in  an  imperfect  state;  —  and  that  their  supposed  inferiority  to 
Shakspere's  other  works,  are  referable  to  other  circumstances 
than  that  of  being  the  productions  of  an  author  or  authors  who 
preceded  him.  "It  is  plausibly  conjectured,"  says  Mr.  Collier, 
"that  Shakespeare  never  touched  the  'First  Part  of  Henry 
Vr  as  it  stands  in  his  works,  and  it  is  merely  the  old  play  on 
the  early  events  of  that  reign,  which  was  most  likely  written 
about  1589."  Dr.  Drake,  in  the  fulness  of  his  confidence  in  this 
plausible  conjecture,  proposes  entirely  to  exclude  the  play  from 
any  future  editions  of  Shakspere's  works,  as  a  production  which 
"offers  no  trace  of  any  finishing  strokes  from  the  master- 
bard." 

Knight  then  enters  into  a  lengthy  and  minute  comparison 
of  the  different  parts  of  his  subject  to  prove  his  contention, 

146 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

and  with  relation  to  the  remodeUng  of  the  works  of  other 
authors,  observes :  — 

That  the  argument  upon  which  Shakspere  has  been  held,  in 
England,  during  the  last  fifty  years,  to  be  one  of  the  most 
unblushing  plagiarists  that  ever  put  pen  to  paper,  has  been 
conducted  throughout  in  a  spirit  of  disingenuousness  almost 
unequalled  in  literary  history.^ 

But  what  would  Knight  have  thought  of  this  ?  — 

Criticism  has  proved  beyond  doubt  that  in  these  plays  Shake- 
speare did  no  more  than  add,  revise  and  correct  other  men's  work. 
The  theory  that  Greene  and  Peele  produced  the  original  draft 
of  the  three  parts  of  "Henry  VL"  which  Shakespeare  recast, 
may  help  to  account  for  Greene's  indignant  denunciation  of 
Shakespeare.  .  .  .  Much  can  be  said  too  in  behalf  of  the  sugges- 
tion that  Shakespeare  joined  Marlowe,  ...  in  the  first  revision 
of  which  "The  Contention,"  and  the  "True  Tragedie"  were  the 
outcome.  Most  of  the  new  passages  in  the  second  recension 
seem  assignable  to  Shakespeare  alone,  but  a  few  suggest  a  part- 
nership resembling  that  of  the  first  revision.  It  is  probable  that 
Marlowe  began  his  final  revision,  but  his  task  was  interrupted 
by  his  death,  and  the  lion's  share  of  the  work  fell  to  his  younger 
coadjutor.  Shakespeare  shared  with  other  men  of  genius  that 
receptivity  of  mind  which  impels  them  to  assimilate  much  of  the 
intellectual  effort  of  their  contemporaries^  and  to  transmute  it  in 
the  process  from  unvalued  ore  into  pure  gold.^ 

Courthope,  one  of  our  best  later  critics,  unhesitatingly  con- 
cedes the  early  authorship  question  in  these  words :  — 

A  long  controversy  has  raged  round  the  question  of  the  au- 
thorship of  these  various  early  plays.  By  the  older  Germans, 
and  some  of  the  earlier  EngHsh  commentators,  they  were  assigned 
without  much  investigation,  to  Shakespeare;  by  almost  all  the 
English  and  American  critics  since  Malone  (whose  opinions  have 
been  adopted  by  many  of  the  modern  Germans)  Shakespeare 
has  been  regarded  either  as  a  partner  in  the  plays  with  other 
dramatists,  or  as  the  unblushing  plagiarist  of  other  men's  work, 
—  I  need  only  here  repeat  —  my  conviction  that  the  elder  Ger- 

1  Knight,  Supplement  to  vol.  ii,  pp.  403.  404»  4I4-  Collier,  Annals  of  the 
Stage,  vol.  Ill,  p.  145.   Drake,  Shakspere  and  his  Times,  vol.  11,  p.  297. 

2  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  59-61.  London,  1898.  Italics  ours. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

man  critics  were  right,  and  the  later  English  wrong,  and  that 
Shakespeare  alone  was  the  author  not  only  of  "The  Contention" 
and  "The  True  Tragedy"  but  of  "Titus  Andronicus."  "The 
Taming  of  a  Shrew,"  and  "The  Troublesome  Raigne  of  King 
John."  1 

This  opinion  is  bravely  expressed  and  will  inevitably  be 
adopted  in  the  future,  though  it  prove  fatal  to  Stratfordian 
interests  represented  by  Lee  who  delights  in  telling  us  just 
how  the  case  stands. 

Readers  who  have  not  made  a  critical  study  of  the  futile 
opinions  of  Stratfordian  commentators  — 

That  like  a  shifted  wind  upon  a  sail 
Startles  and  frights  consideration  — 

no  doubt  will  be  surprised  to  find  that  authors,  whom  they 
have  heretofore  regarded  with  respectful  attention,  have  been 
regaling  them  with  merely  glittering  speculations,  all  because 
of  a  faulty  premise ;  for  no  one  should  doubt  that  if  the  actor 
had  been  born  four  years  earlier  than  he  was,  and  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  early  by  learning  and  genius,  there  would 
have  existed  no  reason  for  the  idle  and  conflicting  theories 
with  which  they  have  struggled  so  long  and  so  laboriously. 

Perhaps  here  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  quote  Phillipps 
again: — 

There  have  arisen  in  these  days  critics  who,  dispensing  alto- 
gether with  the  older  contemporary  evidences,  can  enter  so  per- 
fectly into  all  the  vicissitudes  of  Shakespeare's  intellectual  tem- 
perament, that  they  can  authoritatively  identify  at  a  glance 
every  line  that  he  did  write,  and  with  equal  precision  every  sen- 
tence that  he  did  not.  .  .  .  Lowlier  votaries  can  only  bow  their 
heads  in  silence. 

Perhaps  these  words  apply  as  directly  to  the  wild  specula- 
tions of  those  who  have  wasted  so  much  time  on  the  mystery 
of  Mr.  W.  H.,  and  the  hidden  meaning  of  the  Sonnets.  Vol- 

1  Courthope,  W.  J.,  C.B.,  M.A.,  D.Litt.,  LL.D.,  A  History  of  English 
Poetry,  vol.  iv,  p.  55.  London,  1903. 

148 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

umes  have  been  written  to  identify  numerous  individuals  with 
these  initials.  Phillipps  briefly  dismisses  these  many  futile 
conjectures  in  this  manner,  first  explaining  that  Thorpe,  the 
publisher,  obtained  a  copy  of  the  "Sonnets"  surreptitiously 
of  a  friend  of  the  author :  — 

Thorpe  —  the  well-wishing  adventurer  —  was  so  elated  with 
the  opportunity  of  entering  into  the  speculation  that  he  dedi- 
cated the  work  to  the  factor  in  the  acquisition,  one  Mr.  W.  H., 
in  language  of  hyperbolical  gratitude,  designating  him  as  the 
"only  begetter,"  that  is,  to  the  one  person  who  obtained  the  en- 
tire contents  of  the  work  for  the  use  of  the  publisher,  the  verb, 
heget^  having  been  occasionally  used  in  the  sense  of  get. 

And  he  quotes  from  Dekker's  "  Satiromastix,"  1602,  and  re- 
fers to  "Hamlet,"  HI,  ii,  to  show  this,  continuing:  — 

The  notion  that  begetter  stands  for  inspirer  could  only  be  re- 
ceived were  one  individual  alone  the  subject  of  all  the  poems; 
and,  moreover,  unless  we  adopt  the  wholly  gratuitous  conjecture 
that  the  Sonnets  of  1609  were  not  those  which  were  in  existence 
in  1598,  had  not  the  time  somewhat  gone  by  for  a  publisher's 
dedication  to  that  object.^  ^ 

The  most  interesting,  if  futile,  article  on  the  subject  has 
been  written  by  Oscar  Wilde ;  but  the  wildest  of  all  the  specu- 
lations upon  the  "Sonnets"  have  been  expended  upon  their 
hidden  meaning,  especially,  by  the  advocates  of  the  "dark 
lady"  fiction,  who  show  to  what  the  efforts  of  the  speculative 
commentators  we  have  quoted  lead.  Excited  by  their  example, 
some  neurotic  genius  enters  their  alluring  field,  and  startles  us 
by  his  dexterity.  Thus  we  have  a  well-written  book  devoted 
to  the  exploitation  of  the  impossible  theory  that  the  play  of 
"Henry  V"  is  an  autobiography  en  detail  of  the  Stratford 
actor,  written,  we  are  told,  after  the  writer  had  "shed  tears  of 
regret"  over  the  "untimely  fate"  of  Huth  who  wrote  a  life  of 
Buckle. 

This  book  is  a  striking  example  of  what  an  ingenious  specu- 

1  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  226;  vol.  11,  p.  305. 
149 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

lator  can  accomplish  with  the  mass  of  biographical  material 
which  is  at  hand  to  parallel  almost  any  life;  nor  does  he  travel 
far  to  find  a  suggestion  for  such  work,  for  the  pulpit  often  uses 
the  story  of  the  forty  years'  wandering  in  the  wilderness  to 
justly  parallel  the  experiences  of  a  human  life. 

Of  course,  the  early  roystering  of  the  actor  is  used  with  ef- 
fect ;  the  young  king,  when  a  prince,  was  a  roysterer  like  most 
others  of  his  ilk,  but  the  actor,  "had  got  beyond  roystering;  he 
had  sounded  the  depths  of  folly,  and,  having  discovered  its  un- 
profitableness, had  now  become  an  earnest  thinker  and  hard 
worker."  But  is  this  quite  true.^'  What  about  that  last  royster- 
ing from  which  he  contracted  a  "feavour"  which  caused  his 
death .?  ^  But  this,  perhaps,  is  enough,  and  we  will  refer  to  a 
still  wilder  flight. 

Mary  Fitton  was  a  maid  of  honor  to  Elizabeth.  She  was  a 
brunette,  not  especially  handsome,  but  fascinating.  Gay  and 
vivacious,  utterly  devoid  of  moral  sense,  she  scandalized  the 
far  from  sanctified  court  of  the  Virgin  Queen  by  having  a  child 
by  William  Herbert,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and,  in  1601,  was 
banished  from  court,  and  her  lover  imprisoned.  How  many 
times  she  was  married  is  not  clear,  but  several  times,  while  in 
the  genealogy  of  her  family  she  is  put  down  as  having  "  had  one 
bastard  by  Wm.,  E.  of  Pembroke,  and  two  bastards  by  Sir 
Richard  Leveson,  Kt."  This  brings  her  before  us  with  suffi- 
cient distinctness. 

In  1597,  "Love's  Labours  Lost"  had  been  enacted  at  the 
Court  Festivities,  and  from  this  fact  alone  volumes  have  been 
written  to  show  that  "probably"  she  then  became  acquainted 
with  the  actor,  and  that  the  dark  lady  frequently  mentioned 
in  the  "Sonnets"  was  Mary  Fitton.  Brandes  concludes  from 
the  words,  "but  being  both  from  one,"  in  Sonnet  cxliv, 
"That  the  Dark  Lady  did  not  live  with  Shakespeare  " ;  and  he 
confidently  assures  us  that 

*  Robert  Waters,  William  Shakespeare  Portrayed  by  Himself,  pp.  6-8.  New 
York,  1888. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

It  may  be  gathered  from  Sonnet  cli  with  the  expressions 
"triumphant  prize,"  "proud  of  this  pride,"  that  she  was  greatly 
his  superior  in  rank  and  station,  so  that  her  conquest  for  some 
time  filled  him  with  a  sense  of  triumph. 

But  have  not  lovers  from  time  immemorial  in  the  same,  and 
in  every  station  of  life,  expressed  themselves  in  "  a  sense  of 
triumph"  ?  From  this  shaky  platform  our  new  author,  Harris, 
takes  his  daring  flight,  and  asseverates  as  he  rises:  "We  can 
tell  in  his  works  the  very  moment  he  saw  her";  and  he  ac- 
credits to  her  influence  the  actor's  triumph  in  dramatic  art. 
Thus  we  have  for  the  first  time  the  secret  of  the  actor's  su- 
premacy in  art;  —  the  illicit  love  of  a  depraved  woman!  It 
is  rather  startling,  to  say  the  least,  but  no  more  so  than  the 
chorus  of  approval  from  many  throats,  for  his  biographers 
have  painted  him  in  such  a  manner  that  whatever  such  writers 
as  Rolfe,  or  Brandes,  or  Harris,  and  others  may  rake  up  of  a 
disreputable  nature  does  not  seem  in  the  least  disturbing,  but 
something  quite  accordant  with  his  accepted  character.  Let 
us  quote  farther:  — 

This  woman  dominated  all  Shakespeare's  maturity  from  1597 
to  1608,  and  changed  him  from  a  light-hearted  writer  of  comedies, 
histories,  and  songs,  into  the  greatest  man  who  has  left  record  of 
himself  in  literature,  the  author  of  half  a  dozen  masterpieces, 
whose  names  have  become  tragic  symbols  in  the  consciousness 
of  humanity. 

How  about  "Hamlet,"  called  by  critics  the  greatest  of  his 
works,  and  which  some  biographers  claim  was  a  youthful  pro- 
duction carried  on  his  flight  to  London  in  his  pocket? 

But  she,  though  a  common  strumpet,  was  a 

fine  lady,  and  he  a  poor  peasant,  and  so  they  put  upon  him  a 
servant's  livery  by  way  of  making  him  respectable.  Never  since 
the  Crown  of  Thorns  was  there  such  mindless  mockery. 

The  reader's  patience  is  requested  a  moment  longer:  — 

Two  groups  of  qualities  in  Mary  Fitton  seem  to  have  struck 
Shakespeare  almost  from  the  beginning:  her  cunning  pretence  of 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

restraint  gilding  utter  wantonness,  and  her  dominant  personality- 
armed  with  quick  wit  and  quicker  temper,  —  this  magic  of  per- 
sonality and  high-spirited  witty  boldness  were  clearly  the  quali- 
ties Shakespeare  most  admired  in  his  mistress,  just  as  the  cunning 
wiles  and  wantonness  were  the  "foul  faults"  he  raved  against 
in  both  sonnets  and  plays. 

And  so  he  modeled  all  his  heroines  from  her,  —  Beatrice, 
Cleopatra,  Juliet,  Portia,  Rosalind,  Viola,  —  idealistic  but 
truthful  in  depicting  her  "infinite  variety:  the  figures  cast  no 
shadow  and  are,  therefore,  in  so  far  unreal."  The  actor's 
passion  culminates  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  she  is  a  "fine  lady" 
and  he  a  "poor  player";  and  "he  finally  loses  faith  in  his 
gypsy  mistress,  and,  his  love  purged  of  trust  and  affection, 
hardens  to  lust  and  rages  with  jealousy  in  'Hamlet'  and 
'Othello.'"  And  so  the  author  raves  through  "Lear"  and 
"Timon":  — 

Written  at  a  time  when  the  author  tasted  the  very  bitterness 
of  despair  and  death  —  after  "Timon"  there  is  no  more  to  be 
said:  we  can  follow  his  descent  to  the  alternate  suffering  by  the 
stains  of  his  bleeding  feet  on  the  flints  and  thorns  of  the  rough 
way.  ...  A  little  later,  when  he  wrote  "Troilus  and  Cr^essida" 
and  "Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  the  sky  had  grown  lighter  again, 
and  the  sun  shone  through  the  clouds.  It  is  the  St.  Martin's 
summer,  so  to  speak,  of  his  passion;  the  warmth  and  sunshine 
and  ecstacy  of  joy  are  in  it.^ 

But  she  left  him  for  another  of  many  paramours,  and  in 
1608,  —  Mr.  Harris  gives  us  the  precise  time,  —  the  poor 
actor  left  London  forever,  betaking  himself  to  Stratford  a  sick 
and  broken  man.  His  biographers  have  all  represented  him 
heretofore  as  enjoying  himself  in  trade,  the  loaning  of  money, 
litigation,  tavern  bouts,  and  accumulation  of  real  estate;  in- 
deed, we  are  told  that  he  passed  the  happy  and  dignified  life 
of  a  rich  country  gentleman.  Our  author  tells  us  that  hence- 
forth his  daughter  Judith  was  his  model  for  the  heroines  of 

*  Frank  Harris,  The  Man  Shakespeare  and  His  Tragic  Life  Story.  New  York, 
1909. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

his  last  plays.  We  see  her  as  Marina  in  "Pericles,"  as  Perdita 
in  "Winter's  Tale,"  Miranda  in  "The  Tempest,"  and  finally, 
his  own  wife  as  the  shrew,  Adriana,  in  "  Comedy  of  Errors." 
There  seems  to  be  no  end  of  this  new  type  of  paranoia.  Should 
it  invade  history  what  havoc  would  it  create !  It  is  positively 
alarming. 

But  why  are  such  books  written  ?  Perhaps  this  may  be  an- 
swered by  a  reply  made  some  time  since  to  a  similar  question 
put  by  the  late  Edward  Weeks.  We  were  in  the  Paris  Salon 
looking  at  three  large  canvases  sufficiently  well  painted  to  en- 
title them  to  the  honor  of  a  place  on  the  line.  One  represented 
a  large  hog  stretched  on  a  platform  with  his  throat  cut,  the 
blood  oozing  from  the  gaping  gash,  and  the  butcher  with  a  dis- 
agreeable smirk  of  professional  pride  standing  near  with  the 
bloody  knife.  To  accentuate  the  ghastliness  of  the  scene  there 
was  a  >vreath  of  crimson  roses  twined  about  the  cadaver.  The 
second  canvas  represented  an  old  apple  tree,  on  a  gnarled 
limb  of  which  sat  a  naked  woman,  shrinking  from  her  thorny 
seat  which  was  lacerating  her  tender  flesh.  The  other  picture 
was  a  Mary  Fitton  in  flaming  scarlet,  every  detail  of  which 
was  fascinatingly  repulsive.  Why  were  these  pictures  painted  ? 
we  asked;  and  Weeks  replied:  "The  painters  want  to  create 
a  sensation,  and  draw  public  attention  to  their  work,  which, 
otherwise,  might  pass  unnoticed,  while  all  Paris  now  is  talking 
about  them."  When  it  was  objected  that  no  one  would  buy 
them  he  replied:  "They  will  sell  readily  enough  to  proprietors 
of  evil  resorts;  there  are  enough  to  buy  such  monstrosities": 
in  other  words,  people  of  good  taste  are  in  a  minority,  and  it 
may  be  less  profitable  to  cater  to  them  than  to  those  of  bad 
taste.  The  writing  of  such  books  as  this  from  which  we  have 
quoted  is  prompted  by  the  same  corrupt  taste  as  that  which 
prompted  the  production  of  the  paintings  described;  they  are 
not  works  of  art  but  of  delirium. 

One  of  the  most  sensational  exhibitions  of  futile  speculation 
which  has  been  indulged  in  by  an  erratic  writer  who  seems 

IS3 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

to  be  deficient  of  moral  sense,  is  by  W.  G.  Thorpe,  a  Strat- 
fordian,  who  has  made  a  remarkable  discovery  which  is  going, 
as  he  claims,  to  cause  a  rewriting  of  the  actor's  life.  If  this 
discovery  is  to  be  believed,  the  actor  was  much  more  dis- 
reputable than  his  greatest  "detractors"  have  ever  supposed. 
Some  of  his  biographers  have  expressed  surprise  that  so  little 
is  known  of  him  during  the  five  years  between  his  advent  in 
London  and  the  date  of  the  appearance  of  the  "Venus  and 
Adonis";  namely,  between  1587  and  1592.  Why  there  should 
be  anything  strange  in  the  fact  that  a  poor  country  lad  in  a 
city  like  London  in  this  stirring  period  of  Elizabeth's  reign 
should  not  get  mentioned  in  the  annals  of  the  age,  we  do  not 
know ;  there  were  thousands  who  were  not ;  but  here  are  five 
years  of  mystery  which  must  be  cleared  up  and  a  new  field  for 
the  right  man  to  exploit. 

Thorpe's  discovery  is  a  certain  historical  excerpt  familiar  to 
any  student  of  the  period,  and  to  make  his  subject  as  startling 
as  possible,  he  prints  the  following  statements  in  red  ink :  — 

(i)  That  Shakespeare,  at  all  events  up  to  1597,  kept  a  gold, 
silver,  and  "copper"  hell,  carrying  on  this  last  in  the  open  streets 
with  yokels,  and  putting  on  workman's  dress  in  order  to  appear 
to  be  on  their  level  and  thus  more  easily  gain  their  confidence. 

(2)  That  by  this  means  he  supplied  the  wants  of  his  "hungry 
famylee."    (One  of  Mr.  Halliweirs  standing  puzzles.) 

(3)  That  he  purchased  New  Place  out  of  the  money  got  by 
rooking  an  infant  young  gentleman :  these  circumstances  being 
matter  of  notoriety  among  his  townsmen  and  neighbors,  gentle 
and  simple. 

Now  take  another  tack: 

(A)  That  deer  stealing  was  felony  punishable  at  the  Star 
Chamber,  for  which  Bacon  (practically  the  Public  Prosecutor 
until  he  became  Chancellor)  prosecuted  two  men  separately  as 
late  as  1614. 

(B)  That  hence,  if  an  information  was  laid,  it  was  in  Bacon's 
power  to  have  dealt  similarly  with  Shakespeare  any  time  be- 
tween the  date  of  the  offence  in  1587  and  the  16 14  aforesaid. 

(C)  That  if  Bacon  did  not  so  prosecute,  but  rather  protected 
him  there  must  have  been  good  (Baconian)  reason  for  it.   Now 

154 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Bacon  blackmailed  everybody,  and  hunted  his  patron  Essex  to 
the  death  for  money. 

(D)  Thirteen  years  after  his  Hegira  from  Stratford,  Shake- 
speare's offence  was  remembered  and  cast  up  against  him.  He  had 
fled  for  very  fear.  Can  this  be  the  reason  why  he  did  not  revisit 
his  native  town  for  ten  years,  and  then  only  for  his  son's  funeral, 
when  pity  might  stay  the  hand  of  the  avenger?  Can  this,  too, 
be  the  cause  why  he  "lay  low"  and  kept  out  of  sight  in  London, 
lived  in  a  Bankside  lodging,  and  did  not  ruffle  it  bravely  as  did 
Henslowe,  Alleyne,  and  Burbage,  actor  managers  like  himself.? 
Here  are  two  more  of  the  conundrums  Mr.  Halliwell  despaired 
of  solving. 

(E)  Shakespeare  was  completely  in  Bacon's  power  by  the 
double  ties  of  profitable  employment  flowing  inwards,  and  the 
fear  of  the  terror  of  the  law  which  stood  ready  at  Bacon's  hand. 
We  know  that  Bacon  cadged  for  the  smallest  item  of  "copy" 
for  the  Twickenham  Scrivenery,  so  that  Shakespeare's  theatre 
writing  would  not  pass  overlooked. 

Now  comes  this  in  black  ink :  — 

And  yet,  as  often  happens,  the  victim  had  (perhaps  from  some 
hold  springing  out  of  Bacon's  private  life)  a  back  pull  which 
enabled  him  to  constrain  his  master  to  put  off  another  pressing 
creditor  (as  we  know  he  did)  and  pay  him  out  of  Catesby's  fine, 
really  the  blood  money  for  which  he  had  sold  Essex,  the  amount 
which  paid  for  the  Combe  estate;  yet  one  more  point  which 
puzzled  Mr.  Halliwell  as  he  plaintively  confesses. 

And  now  this  rare  touch  of  modesty  and  philanthropy:  — 

It  may  be,  gentle  reader,  —  I  trust,  indeed,  it  is,  —  that  this 
investigation  which  I  have  had  the  happy  chance  to  open,  may, 
if  followed  up  by  abler  hands,  throw  more  light  still  on  this 
hitherto  unworked  inquiry.  I  do  but  ask  you  to  be  not  shocked 
by  the  announcement,  but  courageously  compare,  side  by  side, 
the  baseless  theory  of  a  glorified  superhuman  Shakespeare  with 
the  hard  facts  which  I  endeavour  in  this  book  to  oppose  to 
it. 

I  make  Shakespeare  neither  better  nor  worse  than  any  other 
man.  I  bow  before  and  acknowledge  his  marvellous  talents  and 
gifts.  I  in  no  way  impeach  the  authorship  of  his  works  —  I  but 
show  the  man  as  he  was,  hardly  tried,  with  all  possible  means  of 

155 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

earning  a  living  denied  him,  yet  doing  his  best,  and  a  desperate 
best,  too,  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door  of  those  whom  he  loved, 
and  whose  daily  bread  he  must,  at  all  hazards,  provide.^ 

And  this  astounding  piece  of  impertinence,  to  intensify  its 
dramatic  flavor,  is  dated  on  "New  Year's  Eve."  It  is  a  New 
Year's  present  to  the  world,  too  precious  to  be  announced 
save  upon  that  day  of  universal  good  will  and  generosity. 

The  discovery  upon  which  this  is  all  based  is  the  following 
from  Harrington,  which  may  well  refer  to  the  actor,  but  where 
Bacon  comes  in  is  a  mystery  beyond  the  art  of  Harris,  Clelia, 
Mrs.  Kintzel,  or  Lee,  et  id  genus  omne,  to  divine :  — 

There  is  a  great  show  of  popularyte  in  playing  small  game  — 
as  we  have  heard  of  one  that  shall  be  nameless  (because  he  was 
not  blameless)  that  with  shootynge  seaven  up  groates  among 
yeomen,  and  goinge  in  plain  apparell,  had  stolen  so  many  hartes 
(for  I  do  not  say  he  came  trewly  by  them)  that  he  was  accused 
of  more  than  fellony.  .  .  .  Pyrates  by  sea,  robbers  by  land,  have 
become  honest  substanciall  men  as  we  call  them,  and  purchasers 
of  more  lawfull  purchase.  With  the  ruine  of  infant  young  gentle- 
men, the  dyeing  box  maintains  a  hungry  famylee.^ 

That  Stratfordians  accept  Thorpe  is  evinced  by  his  own 
statements,  and  by  the  fact  that  the  present  writer  possesses 
the  presentation  copy  of  his  work  to  the  late  Samuel  Timmins 
with  the  following:  — 

Dear  Mr.  Timmins:  — 

To  you  to  whom  this  book  owes  so  much,  the  first  copy  (saving 
that  used  for  copyright) 

With  grateful  thanks 

W.  G.  T. 

And  on  the  title-page  is  Mr.  Timmins's  autograph,  — 

With  the  compliments  of 
Sam:  Timmins. 

Arley,  Coventry. 

*  Thorpe,  The  Hidden  Lives  of  Shakespeare^  etc. 

*  Nugcs  Antiques f  vol.  i,  p.  219. 

156 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  quotations  we  have  given  from  many  of  the  best- 
known  commentators  and  critics  glaringly  reveal  the  unrelia- 
bility of  their  opinions,  and  the  impossibility  of  reconciling  the 
personality  and  life  of  the  Stratford  actor  with  the  author- 
ship of  the  works  they  so  facilely  concede  to  him ;  especially 
is  this  true  when  we  consider  those  of  them,  all  anonymous, 
which  were  in  existence  at  or  near  the  time  when  he  reached 
London.  These  have  proved  to  be  a  stumbling-block  of  an- 
noying immobility  to  those  interested  in  the  case  of  their  fa- 
vorite client,  and  have  caused  a  division  among  them. 

On  the  one  hand,  the  crass  and  ready  method  has  been 
adopted  of  assuming  that  there  were  old  works,  some  lost, 
which  their  client  appropriated  and  altered,  at  a  period,  of 
course,  as  late  as  possible,  to  allow  a  certain  margin  of  time 
for  him  to  acquire  a  modicum  of  education.  It  is  edifying  to 
note  how  some  of  these  critics  endeavor  to  stretch  this  period 
as  much  as  possible,  and  others  to  minimize  the  significance 
of  the  erudition  displayed  in  the  works  they  ascribe  to  him,  so 
as  to  give  some  color  of  reasonableness  to  their  assumptions. 
,Had  none  of  these  anonymous  works  survived  to  vex  them, 
this  procedure  would  have  possessed  plausibility ;  but  several 
of  them  are  still  extant,  showing,  as  a  rule,  more  or  less  imma- 
turity, but  possessing  internal  evidence  which  identifies  them 
beyond  question  with  the  admittedly  orthodox  works.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  bolder  and  more  difficult  position  has  been 
chosen  by  some  who  set  out  by  admitting  that  the  author  of 
the  works  as  they  now  exist  was  the  author  of  the  early  anon- 
ymous ones,  and,  ignoring  the  necessity  of  education  to  account 
for  the  almost  pedantic  display  of  learning  in  them, — much 
of  it  so  marked  as  to  excite  the  admiration  of  the  greatest 
scholars,  —  they  go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  they  were  the 
product  of  pure  genius,  free  from  those  trammels  imposed  by 
the  necessity  of  education  upon  mankind.  The  enthusiasts 
who  adopt  this  method  of  explaining  how  the  actor  could  have 
written  poems  and  dramas  while  leading  a  life  so  disgraceful 

^S7 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

that  it  subjected  him  to  the  degradation  of  being  driven  out  of 
his  native  town,  though  a  married  man,  and  father  of  children, 
are  not  in  the  least  fazed  by  the  fact  that  the  works  they 
ascribe  to  him  exhibit  a  knowledge  of  several  languages ;  of  the 
rarest  books  of  the  age — though  Stratford  was  bare  of  books, 
and  there  was  not  a  public  or  even  private  circulating  library 
in  London ;  of  the  rules  of  poetic  composition ;  of  etymology ; 
of  law;  philosophy;  medicine;  botany;  the  natural  history  of 
his  time,  and  much  more;  but  jauntily  assert  that  genius,  as 
in  the  case  of  Burns,  accounts  for  it  all,  though  the  simple  and 
homely  lyrics  of  Burns  display  nothing  of  the  kind.  Certainly 
the  position  of  these  visionaries  is  so  pathetically  untenable  as 
to  quite  reconcile  us  with  their  more  cautious  brethren,  the 
old  play  advocates,  who  make  their  client  a  plagiarist  of  the 
first  water;  a  logical  position,  at  least,  considering  the  char- 
acter they  unblushingly  accord  him.  To  these  old  play-ad- 
vocates Knight  refers  when  he  declares,  referring  to  Malone, 
that  if  the  actor  had  done  all  he  represented  him  to  have  done, 
namely:  "New  versify,  new  model,  transpose,  amplify,  im- 
prove, and  polish,  he  would  have  been  essentially  a  dishonest 
plagiarist."  Of  course,  this  applies  equally  to  Lee,  Collins, 
Robertson,  those  German  critics  who  have  followed  the  Eng- 
lish lead,  and  other  Stratfordians  who  have  adopted  the  opin- 
ions of  earlier  commentators,  without  any  effort  at  originality. 
Such  commentators  will  doubtless  continue  to  thrash  out  the 
same  musty  straw  to  the  edification  of  those  who  are  con- 
tented with  such  results,  for  there  is  no  literary  work  which 
brings  to  orthodox  writers  such  a  satisfying  reputation  for 
"scholarship"  as  a  rehash  of  the  speculations  of  the  old  Shak- 
sperian  commentators  however  stale  they  may  be. 

The  most  remarkable  achievement  of  this  kind  has  been 
performed  by  Furness,  whose  work^  has  been  declared  to  be 
"  a  monument  of  Shakespearean  scholarship,"  which  will  im- 

^  Horace  Howard  Furness,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  A  New  Variorum  Edition  of 
Shakespeare.   Philadelphia  and  London. 

158 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

mortalize  its  author.  This  may  be  true,  for  folly  as  well  as 
wisdom  has  immortalized  men,  and  if  any  man  has  ever 
blindly  devoted  his  life  to  futile  work  it  is  Furness.  Take  his 
"Hamlet''  as  an  example.  This  play  comprises  an  equivalent 
of  eighty-six  pages  of  one  of  the  two  sumptuous  volumes, 
comprising  nine  hundred  pages  of  notes  and  similar  literary 
material.  As  this  matter  is  in  finer  print  than  the  play,  it 
would  make,  if  printed  in  type  of  the  same  size,  over  fourteen 
pages  of  notes  to  every  page  of  text.  Such  a  monumental  ex- 
ample of  annotation  gone  mad,  exhibiting  the  most  offensive 
pedantry,  should  indeed  immortalize  its  author,  whose  chau- 
vinism is  so  baldly  exhibited  at  the  outset  in  his  absurdly  mean- 
ingless dedication  to  the  German  Shakespeare  Society,  which 
he  designates  as  being  "representative  of  a  people  whose  re- 
cent history  has  proved  once  for  all  that  Germany  is  not 

HAMLET." 

In  his  preface  he  informs  us  that  the  plan  of  the  preceding 
volumes  of  his  work  has  been 

modified  only  by  the  necessity  of  making  the  impossible  attempt 
to  condense  within  a  certain  number  of  pages  a  whole  literature. 

And  so  he  declares,  agreeing  with  another  enthusiast,  — 

We  are  glad  to  listen  to  every  one  who  has  travelled  through 
the  kingdom  of  Shakespeare.  Som.ething  interesting  there  must 
be  even  in  the  humblest  journal;  and  we  turn  with  equal  pleas- 
ure from  the  converse  of  those  who  have  climbed  over  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  highest  mountains  there,  to  the  lowlier  tales  of  less 
ambitious  pilgrims,  who  have  sat  on  the  green  and  sunny  knoll, 
beneath  the  whispering  tree,  and  by  the  music  of  the  gentle  rivulet. 

This  reminds  us  of  Clelia,  Harris,  Thorpe,  and  others,  and 

gives  us  a  foretaste  of  what  we  may  expect.  Let  us  take  but 

two  or  three  examples  at  random:  — 

Scene  I.  Elsinore.  A  -platform  before  the  castle.    Francisco  at  his  post. 

Enter  to  him  Bernardo. 

Ber.  Who's  there? 
Fran.  Nay,  answer  me;  stand,  and  unfold  yourself. 

IS9 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Notes  on  above :  — 

Act  I.]  Actus  Primus.   Ff. 

Scene  L]  Scoena  Prima.  Fi.  Scsena  Prima.  F2.  F4.  Scena  Prima  F3. 

Elsinore.]   Cap. 

A  platform  .  .  .]  Mai.  An  open  Place  before  the  Palace.  Rowe, 
Pope.  A  Platform  before  the  Palace.  Theob.  +  Platform  of  the  Castle. 
Cap. 

Francisco  .  .  .]  Dyce.  Francisco  upon  .  .  .  Cap.  Enter  Bernardo 
and  Francisco,  two  Centinels.  QqFf  (Bernardo  Q4)  Rowe  +  Francisco 
on  guard.    Sta. 

1-5.  Who's.  .  .  .  He]  Two  lines,  the  first  ending  unfold.  Cap.  Steev. 
Var.  Cald.  Knt,  Coll.  White,  El. 

I.  Who's]  Whose  Qq. 

1.  W^ho's  there]  Coleridge  (p.  148):  That  Shakespeare  meant  to 
put  an  effect  in  the  actor's  power  in  these  very  first  words  is  evident 
from  the  impatience  expressed  by  the  startled  Francisco  in  the  line 
that  follows.  A  brave  man  is  never  so  peremptory  as  when  he  fears 
that  he  is  afraid.  Tschischwitz  finds  a  "psychological  motive"  in  thus 
representing  Bernardo  as  so  forgetful  of  all  military  use  and  wont  as  to 
challenge  Francisco  who  is  on  guard.  Evidently  Bernardo  is  afraid  to 
meet  the  Ghost  all  alone,  and  it  is  because  he  feels  so  unmanned  that 
his  last  words  to  Francisco  are  to  bid  Horatio  and  Marcellus  make  haste. 
(For  other  instances  of  irregularities  in  metre,  which  may  be  explained 
by  the  custom  of  placing  ejaculations,  appellations,  &c.,  out  of  the 
regular  verse,  see  Abbott,  §  512.  Ed.) 

2.  me]  Jennens:  This  is  the  emphatic  word.  [Hanmer  printed  it  in 
italics.  Ed.]  Francisco,  as  the  sentinel  on  guard,  has  the  right  of  insist- 
ing on  the  watch-word,  which  is  given  in  Bernardo's  answer. 

Hor.  It  would  have  much  amazed  you. 
Ham.  Very  like,  very  like.    Stay'd  it  long.^ 

Notes  on  above  lines :  — 

235,  236.  It  .  .  .  like.]  One  line.  Cap.  Steev.  Var.  Cald.  Knt  i, 
Coll.  White. 

236,  237.   very  .  .  .  haste.]  One  line.  Cap.  Mai. 

236.  Very  like,  very  like.]  Very  like  Qq,  Pope  +,  Jen.  El. 

236.  Hke]  Claredon:  Seen,  ii,  336.  This  use  of  "Hke"  instead  of  "likely" 
has  become  provincial.  Congreve  (Way  of  the  World,  iv,  iv)  puts  it 
into  the  mouth  of  the  rustic.  Sir  Wilfull. 

There  is  more  on  these  perfectly  simple  words,  but  this  is 
perhaps  sufficient. 

Ham.  (aside).  A  little  more  than  kin,  and  less  than  kind. 
160 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

These  lines  plainly  indicating  that  the  king  was  kin  to  him, 
having  slain  his  father,  incite  Furness  to  oppress  us  with  the 
equivalent  of  a  page  and  a  third  of  the  text  of  the  play,  a  fair 
example  of  the  foggy  and  mischievous  nature  of  the  criticism 
in  which  Stratfordian  critics  love  to  indulge :  — 

65.  kin.  .  .  kind]  Hanmer:  Probably  a  proverbial  expression  for  a 
relationship  so  confused  and  blended  that  it  was  hard  to  define  it. 
Johnson  supposes  *'kind"  to  be  here  the  German  word  for  child.  That 
is,  "I  am  more  than  cousin  and  less  than  son."  This  conjecture  Steevens 
properly  disposes  of  by  requiring  some  proof  that  "kind"  was  ever 
used  by  any  English  writer  for  child.  He  adds:  A  jingle  of  the  same  sort 
is  found  in  Mother  Bombie,  1594,  " — the  nearer  we  are  in  blood,  the 
further  we  must  be  from  love,  the  greater  the  kindred  is,  the  less  the 
kindness  must  be."  Again,  in  Gorboduc,  1561,  "In  kinde  a  father, 
but  not  kindelynesse."  As  "kind,"  however,  signifies  nature,  Hamlet 
may  mean  that  his  relationship  had  become  an  unnatural  one,  as  it  was 
partly  founded  on  incest. 

Be  wary  then;  best  safety  lies  in  fear; 
Youth  to  itself  rebels,  though  none  else  near. 

Notes  on  the  word  "best"  and  "safety":  — 

43.  best]  The  not  uncommon  omission  of  the  article  before  super- 
latives is  perhaps  to  be  explained,  according  to  Abbott,  §  82,  by  the 
double  meaning  of  the  superlative,  which  means  not  only  "the  best  of 
the  class,"  but  also  "very  good." 

43.  safety]  Francke:  See  Macb.  iii,  v,  32.  Also  Velleius  Paterculus, 
ii,  218:  frequentissimum  initium  esse  calamitatis  securitatem.  Elze: 
See  Tro.  &  Cress.  11,  ii,  14:  "the  wound  of  peace  is  surety,  Surety 


This  should  be  enough  to  weary  the  reader.  The  most  in- 
significant words,  "the,"  "and,"  "though,"  "near,"  are  ex- 
ploited in  the  same  dreary  manner ;  yet,  when  we  think  of  poor 
Furness  sitting  long  years  engaged  in  his  literary  carpentry, 
patiently  copying  or  directing  an  apprentice  to  copy  such  stuff 
as  we  have  quoted  from  the  mass  of  books  surrounding  him, — 
those  of  the  "lowlier  pilgrims"  as  well  as  of  the  more  daring 
"Who  have  climbed  over  the  magnificence  of  the  highest 
mountains,"  —  we  can  have  for  him  nothing  but  pity,  and  are 
ready  to  forgive  his  harsh  treatment  of  a  young  friend,  who 

161 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

excited  his  wrath  and  "tears''  by  venturing  upon  such  an  act 
of  sacrilege  as  putting  his  hand  into  an  old  glove,  which  Fur- 
ness  had  deluded  himself  into  believing  once  belonged  to  the 
subject  of  his  lifelong  idolatry.  At  the  present  time  seventeen 
volumes  of  his  work  have  been  printed  comprising  over  eight 
thousand  pages,  a  large  part  of  which  is  of  the  precise  char- 
acter of  what  we  have  here  quoted ;  and  though  Furness  has 
ended  his  labors,  his  work  is  being  carried  on  in  the  same 
manner  by  his  worthy  son,  who  has  admirably  learned  his 
trade,  and  can  dovetail  with  the  same  nicety  as  his  honored 
forbear.  The  world,  therefore,  is  to  be  endowed  with  many 
more  volumes,  probably  no  more  flawed  with  erroneous  opin- 
ions and  positive  errors  than  those  already  published,  a  trifling 
matter,  as  a  volume  of  corrigenda  would  take  care  of  these 
if  not  annotated;  if  they  were,  it  would,  of  course,  require  several 
more  volumes,  and  this  might  be  thought  desirable  in  order  to 
maintain  the  "monumental"  feature  of  the  work. 

It  was  estimated  many  years  ago  that  ten  thousand  vol- 
umes, large  and  small,  had  been  written  on  the  "Shakespeare'' 
Works.  This  number  should  have  about  doubled  by  this  time, 
and  it  is  but  true  to  say  that  they  constitute  such  a  confusing 
mass  of  irreconcilable  opinions  as  to  be  useless  to  students, 
except  as  a  warning  against  juggling  with  glittering  theories 
in  literary  criticism.  This,  however,  can  hardly  compensate 
for  the  dissemination  of  so  much  fiction,  and  the  imposition 
of  useless  toil  to  overworked  librarians  and  callow  students. 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Among  plays  bearing  the  authorial  name  of  William 
Shakespeare,  or  its  initials,  we  cannot  afford  to  shirk  the 
responsibility  imposed  upon  us  by  our  title-page  of  examining, 
briefly  at  least,  those  admitted  to  the  Third  Folio,  as  well  as 
several  others  having  quite  as  good  a  claim  to  canonization, 
if  we  accept  contemporary  evidence,  or  the  claims  of  the 
so-called  "Cipher  Story,"  to  be  treated  later. 

Sir  John  Oldcastle,  bearing  the  full  name,  "William 
Shakespeare,"  on  the  title-page,  was  never  disowned  by  the 
actor,  nor  disputed  by  critics  until,  in  1790,  Mai  one,  who  then 
almost  monopolized  the  field  of  speculative  criticism,  passed 
upon  it  an  unfavorable  opinion;  indeed,  he  goes  so  far  as  to 
say  that  he  cannot  "perceive  the  least  trace  of  our  great  poet  in 
any  part  of  the  play."  No  less  a  critic,  however,  than  Schlegei 
declares  that  this  play,  "Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,"  and 
"Locrine"  "are  not  only  unquestionably  Shakspere's,  but, 
in  my  opinion,  they  deserve  to  be  classed  among  his  best  and 
maturest  works."  "Thomas  Lord  Cromwell"  and  "Sir  John 
Oldcastle"  he  classes  together  as  biographical  dramas,  and 
models  of  their  kind,  the  first  in  the  nature  of  its  subject  linked 
to  "Henry  VIII,"  and  the  second  to  "Henry  V."  Tieck  also 
has  no  hesitation  in  assigning  these  plays  to  the  author  of 
"Hamlet. "  On  the  other  hand,  Phillipps,  realizing  the  danger 
of  questioning  the  infallibility  of  the  Canon,  rejects,  in  accord 
with  the  prevailing  policy,  the  play  of  "Oldcastle,"  suggesting 
an  old  play  of  that  name,  while  Ulrici  ascribes  it  to  an  im- 
itator "who  tried  to  model  himself  upon  Shakespeare's  style." 

The  personalities  of  Oldcastle  and  Falstaff  have  been  con- 

163 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

fused  unnecessarily  by  critics.  There  were  real  personages  of 
both  names,  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  drama  we  are  consider- 
ing to  lead  one  to  suppose  that  the  worthy  Sir  John  was  the 
prototype  of  the  selfish  and  lascivious  Falstaff . 

In  the  "Famous  Victories"  there  is  a  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  a 
disreputable  fellow  associated  with  Prince  Henry  in  his  mad- 
cap adventures,  whom  the  public  later  recognized  in  Falstaff, 
seemingly  to  the  annoyance  of  the  Cobhams  who  were  allied 
to  the  Oldcastle  family.  The  following  quotations  from  the 
Prologue  to  "Sir  John  Oldcastle,"  and  the  Epilogue  to  the 
second  part  of  "Henry  IV,"  should  settle  the  matter:  — 

It  is  no  pamper'd  glutton  we  present, 
Nor  aged  Councellor  to  youthfull  sinne, 
But  one  whose  virtue  shown  above  the  rest, 
A  valiant  Martyr,  and  a  vertuous  Peer. 

For  anything  I  know  Falstaff e  shall  dye  of  a  sweat  unless  already 
he  he  kilFd  with  your  hard  Opinions:  For  Old-Castle  dyed  a  Martyr^ 
and  this  is  not  the  man. 

The  First  Quarto  was  printed  anonymously  in  1600,  and 
the  Second  followed,  with  ''William  Shakespeare"  on  the  title- 
page.  The  play  opens  with  a  street  quarrel  between  the  fol- 
lowers of  Lords  Powis  and  Herbert,  which  is  suppressed  by  the 
appearance  of  the  judges  upon  the  scene.  In  the  Second,  the 
Bishop  of  Rochester  denounces  Lord  Cobham,  or  Oldcastle, 
as  a  heretic.  This  is  followed  by  a  gathering  of  rebels  in  Lon- 
don who  proclaim  Oldcastle  their  general,  and  then  we  have  a 
scene  between  him  and  the  king :  — 

K.  Henry.       'T  is  not  enough,  lord  Cobham,  to  submit; 
You  must  forsake  your  gross  opinion. 
The  bishops  find  themselves  much  injured; 
And  though,  for  some  good  service  you  have  done, 
We  for  our  part  are  pleas'd  to  pardon  you. 
Yet  they  will  not  so  soon  be  satisfied. 
Coh.       My  gracious  lord,  unto  your  majesty, 
Next  unto  my  God,  I  do  owe  my  life; 
And  what  is  mine,  either  by  nature's  gift, 
Or  fortune's  bounty,  all  is  at  your  service. 

164 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

But  for  obedience  to  the  pope  of  Rome, 
I  owe  him  none;  nor  shall  his  shaveling  priests, 
That  are  in  England,  alter  my  belief. 
If  out  of  Holy  Scripture  they  can  prove 
That  I  am  in  an  error,  I  will  yield. 
And  gladly  take  instruction  at  their  hands: 
But  otherwise,  I  do  beseech  your  grace 
My  conscience  may  not  be  encroached  upon. 
K.  Henry.       We  would  be  loth  to  press  our  subjects'  bodies. 
Much  less  their  souls,  the  dear  redeemed  part 
Of  Him  that  is  the  ruler  of  us  all: 
Yet  let  me  counsel  you,  that  might  command. 
Do  not  presume  to  tempt  them  with  ill  words, 
Nor  suffer  any  meeting  to  be  had 
Within  your  house;  but  to  the  uttermost 
Disperse  the  flocks  of  this  new  gathering  sect. 
Coh.       My  liege,  if  any  breathe,  that  dares  come  forth, 
And  say,  my  life  in  any  of  these  points 
Deserves  the  attainder  of  ignoble  thoughts. 
Here  stand  I,  craving  no  remorse  at  all, 
But  even  the  utmost  rigour  may  be  shown. 

The  enemies  of  Oldcastle  finally  succeed  in  poisoning  the 
King's  mind,  and  he  charges  him  with  treason.  Oldcastle,  who 
has  possessed  himself  of  the  proofs  of  his  enemies'  traitorous 
designs,  presents  them  to  the  King  who,  perceiving  his  error, 
exclaims :  — 

Oh  never  heard  of,  base  ingratitude! 
Even  those  I  hugge  within  my  bosome  most 
Are  readiest  evermore  to  sting  my  heart. 
Pardon  me,  Cobham,  I  have  done  thee  wrong; 
Hereafter  I  will  live  to  make  amends. 

But  the  Bishop  seizes  the  opportunity  when  the  King  is 
absent  to  arrest  him  and  commit  him  to  the  Tower,  intending 
his  execution;  but  he  escapes  with  his  wife  in  disguise,  and  in 
Act  V.  they  appear  in  "A  wood  near  St.  Albans." 

Oldcastle.       Come,  Madam,  happily  escapt;  here  let  us  sit. 
This  place  is  farre  remote  from  any  path. 
And  here  awhile  our  weary  limbs  may  rest. 
To  take  refreshing,  free  from  the  pursuite 
Of  envious  Rochester. 

i6s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Lady.  But  where,  my  Lord, 

Shall  we  find  rest  for  our  disquiet  minds? 

There  dwell  untamed  thoughts  that  hardly  stoupe, 

To  such  abasement  of  disdained  rags. 

We  were  not  wont  to  travell  thus  by  night, 

Especially  on  foote. 
Oldcastle.  No  matter,  love; 

Extremities  admit  no  better  choice. 

And  were  it  not  for  thee,  say  froward  time 

Imposde  a  greater  taske,  I  would  esteeme  it 

As  lightly  as  the  wind  that  blows  upon  us; 

But  in  thy  sufi'erance  I  am  doubly  taskt, 

Thou  wast  not  wont  to  have  the  earth  thy  stoole, 

Nor  the  moist  dewy  grasse  thy  pillow,  nor 

Thy  chamber  to  be  the  wide  horrizon. 
Lady.       How  can  it  seeme  a  trouble,  having  you 

A  partner  with  me  in  the  worst  I  feele? 

No,  gentle  Lord,  your  presence  would  give  ease 

To  death  it  selfe,  should  he  now  seaze  upon  me. 

Behold  what  my  foresight  hath  undertane, 
(heres  bread  and  cheese  &  a  bottle) 

For  feare  we  faint;  they  are  but  homeely  cates. 

Yet  saucde  with  hunger,  they  may  seeme  as  sweete 

As  greater  dainties  we  were  wont  to  taste. 
Oldcastle.       Praise  be  to  Him  whose  plentie  sends  both  this 

And  all  things  else  our  mortall  bodies  need; 

Nor  scorne  we  this  poore  feeding,  nor  the  state 

We  now  are  in,  for  what  is  it  on  earth. 

Nay,  under  heaven,  continues  at  a  stay.? 

Ebbes  not  the  sea,  when  it  hath  overthrowne? 

FoUowes  not  darknes  when  the  day  is  gone? 

And  see  we  not  sometime  the  eie  of  heaven 

Dimmd  with  o'erflying  clowdes :  theres  not  that  worke 

Of  carefull  nature,  or  of  cunning  art, 

(How  strong,  how  beauteous,  or  how  rich  it  be) 

But  falls  in  time  to  ruine.  Here,  gentle  Madame, 

In  this  one  draught  I  wash  my  sorrow  downe. 

Sir  Richard  Lee,  finding  the  body  of  his  son  who  has  been 
murdered  near  the  place  where  Oldcastle  has  taken  refuge, 
discovers  the  fugitives  and  arrests  them  as  the  murderers.  The 
last  scene  is  in  "A  Hall  of  Justice"  where  Oldcastle  is  charged 
by  Lee  with  the  murder.  The  evidence  is  against  him,  as  blood 
is  found  on  his  clothes  and  a  knife  with  which  he  cut  his  bread 

i66 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

in  the  former  scene ;  but  when  all  hope  of  proving  his  innocence 
is  gone,  the  Constable  appears  with  the  murderer,  and  Old- 
castle  is  declared  innocent,  and  offered  asylum  in  Wales  where 
he  will  be  safe  from  the  malice  of  his  enemies. 

Concerning  this  play  a  curious  question  is  disclosed  by  this 
entry  in  Henslowe's  "Diary":  — 

This  1 6th  of  October  '99,  received  by  me  Thomas  Downton 
of  Phillipp  Henchlow,  to  pay  Mr.  Munday,  Mr.  Drayton  and 
Mr.  Wilson,  and  Hathway  for  the  first  parts  of  the  Lyfe  of  Sir 
John  Ouldcasstell,  and  in  earnest  of  the  second  parts,  for  the  use 
of  the  companye  ten  pownd. 

This  is  another  case  precisely  like  that  of  "Julius  Caesar," 
and,  as  in  that  case,  the  easiest  explanation  has  been  resorted 
to  by  some  commentators ;  namely,  that  there  were  two  plays 
of  the  same  title.  A  better  explanation  is  —  that  the  author 
composed  this  play,  and  that  it  was  arranged  for  the  stage  by 
professional  playwrights  who  probably  cut  and  changed  it  in 
many  instances,  which  would  account  for  some  of  the  incon- 
gruities in  other  plays  which  have  troubled  critics. 

Thomas  Lord  Cromwell.  This  play,  political  in  its  na- 
ture, appeared  in  1602,  shortly  after  the  Essex  Rebellion,  and 
Cromwell,  having  been  also  Earl  of  Essex,  seems  to  have  at- 
tracted notice  to  that  event.  It  was  first  published  anony- 
mously, and  continued  to  be  played  by  the  company  to  which 
the  Stratford  actor  was  nominally  attached,  until  1613,  when 
it  was  republished  with  his  initials  on  the  title-page.  Farmer 
ascribes  its  authorship  to  Heywood,  and  others  to  Wentworth 
Smith,  but  there  is  nothing  whatever,  not  even  its  style,  to 
give  color  to  such  allotment.  That  it  was  regarded  as  a  gen- 
uine work  of  the  author  of  plays  in  the  Canon  is  evidenced  by 
its  indorsement  by  Rowe,  Pope,  and  Walker,  who  published 
it  as  "A  Tragedy  By  Shakespear,"  as  late  as  1734,  and  its  ac- 
ceptance by  the  German  critics,  Ulrici,  Tieck,  and  Schlegel. 

Knight,  while  condemning  it,  remarks,  "We  are  acquainted 

167 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

with  no  dramatic  writer  of  mark  or  likelihood,  who  was  a  con- 
temporary of  Shakspere,  to  whom  it  may  be  assigned,"  yet 
Fleay  has  expressed  a  positive  belief  that  the  initials  signified 
William  Sly,  an  actor  unknown  as  an  author.  With  equal  rea- 
son he  might  have  used  any  other  name  with  the  same  initials. 
The  play  begins  at  Putney  in  old  Cromwell's  smithery,  the 
din  of  which  disturbs  the  studies  of  the  hero,  his  son,  who 
complains  of  it  and  is  reproved  by  the  old  man.  The  proud 
youth  indulges  in  this  monologue :  — 

Crom.       Why  should  my  birth  keepe  downe  my  mounting  spirit? 
Are  not  all  creatures  subject  unto  time: 
To  time,  who  doth  abuse  the  cheated  world, 
And  filles  it  full  of  hodge-podge  bastardie? 
Theres  legions  now  of  beggars  on  the  earth, 
That  their  originall  did  spring  from  Kings: 
And  manie  Monarkes  now  whose  fathers  were 
The  riffe-raffe  of  their  age:  for  Time  and  Fortune 
Weares  out  a  noble  traine  to  beggerie, 
And  from  the  dunghill  minions  doe  advance 
To  state  and  marke  in  this  admiring  world. 
This  is  but  course,  which  in  the  name  of  Fate 
Is  scene  as  often  as  it  whirles  about: 
The  River  Thames,  that  by  our  doore  doth  passe, 
His  first  beginning  is  but  small  and  shallow. 
Yet  keeping  on  his  course,  growes  to  a  sea. 
And  likewise  Wolsey,  the  wonder  of  our  age, 
His  birth  as  meane  as  mine,  a  Butchers  sonne, 
Now  who  within  this  land  a  greater  man? 
Then,  Cromwell,  cheere  thee  up,  and  tell  thy  soule. 
That  thou  maist  live  to  florish  and  controule. 

The  ambitious  youth  leaves  home  and  enters  the  employ  of 
Antwerp  merchants.  After  various  experiences  he  finds  him- 
self in  Bononia,  and  is  fortunate  enough  to  rescue  the  Earl  of 
Bedford  from  captivity.  After  extensive  wanderings  he  finally 
returns  to  England  and  becomes  the  friend  of  Wolsey;  but 
after  the  death  of  the  powerful  Cardinal,  Gardiner,  whom  he 
has  offended,  plots  for  his  destruction. 

This  scene  follows :  — 

Crom.       Good  morrow  to  my  Lord  of  Winchester 

I  know  you  beare  me  hard  about  the  Abbie  landes. 

i68 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Gar,       Have  I  not  reason  when  religion  is  wronged? 
You  had  no  colour  for  what  you  have  done. 
Crom.       Yes;  the  abolishing  of  Antichrist, 

And  of  this  Popish  order  from  our  Realme. 

I  am  no  enemy  to  religion, 

But  what  is  done,  it  is  for  Englands  good. 

What  did  they  serve  for  but  to  feede  a  sort 

Of  lazie  Abbotes  and  of  full  fed  Fryers  ? 

They  neither  plow,  nor  sowe,  and  yet  they  reape 

The  fat  of  all  the  Land,  and  sucke  the  poore: 

Looke,  what  was  theirs,  is  in  King  Henries  handes; 

His  wealth  before  lay  in  the  Abbie  lands. 

Gar.       Indeede  these  things  you  have  aledged,  my  Lord, 
When  God  doth  know  the  infant  yet  unborne 
Will  curse  the  time  the  Abbies  were  puld  downe. 
I  pray,  now  where  is  hospitality.^ 
Where  now  may  poore  distressed  people  go. 
For  to  releeve  their  neede,  or  rest  their  bones, 
When  weary  travell  doth  oppresse  their  limmes? 
And  where  religious  men  should  take  them  in, 
Shall  now  be  kept  backe  with  a  Mastive  dogge. 

Gardiner  succeeds  in  his  design,  and  Cromwell  is  thrown 
into  the  Tower  for  treason,  where  his  son  is  brought  to  take 
his  leave  of  him. 

Lieu.       Here  is  your  sonne,  come  to  take  his  leave. 
Crom.       To  take  his  leave!   Come  hether,  Harry  Cromwell. 

Marke,  boye,  the  last  words  that  I  speake  to  thee. 

Flatter  not  Fortune,  neither  fawne  upon  her; 

Gape  not  for  state,  yet  loose  no  sparke  of  honor; 

Ambition,  like  the  plague  see  thou  eschew  it; 

I  die  for  treason,  boy,  and  never  knew  it. 

Yet  let  thy  faith  as  spotlesse  be  as  mine. 

And  Cromwels  vertues  in  thy  face  shall  shine. 

Come,  goe  along  and  see  me  leave  my  breath, 

And  He  leave  thee  upon  the  floure  of  death. 

These  are  the  last  words  before  his  execution:  — 

Hang.       I  am  your  deaths  man;  pray,  my  Lord,  forgive  me. 
Crom.       Even  with  my  soule.   Why,  man,  thou  art  my  Doctor, 

And  bringest  me  precious  Phisicke  for  my  soule.  — 

My  Lord  of  Bedford,  I  desire  of  you. 

Before  my  death,  a  corporall  Imbrace. 

(Bedford  comes  to  him,  Cromwell  imhraces  him.) 

169 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Farewell,  great  Lord,  my  love  I  do  commend, 
My  hart  to  you;  my  soule  to  heaven  I  send. 

Some  of  these  lines  certainly  have  a  Shaksperian  ring,  if 
not  over-distinct. 


LocRiNE.  This  story  was  a  favorite  with  the  poets.  Milton 
introduces  it  in  his  "Comus"  with  these  words :  — 

There  is  a  gentle  nymph  not  far  from  hence 

That  with  moist  curb  sways  the  smooth  Severn  stream, 

Sabrina  is  her  name,  a  virgin  pure; 

Whilome  she  was  the  daughter  of  Locrine. 

The  Tragedy  was  entered  for  license  in  1594,  and  printed  in 
Quarto  in  1595  under  the  initials  "W.  S."  Steevens  accredits 
the  authorship  to  Marlowe,  who  died  a  year  before  it  was 
entered  on  the  Register.  Knight  says  that  the  initials  "W.  S." 
"might,  without  any  attempt  to  convey  the  notion  that 
'Locrine'  was  written  by  Shakspere,  have  fairly  stood  for 
William  Smith,  and  in  the  same  way  the  W.  S.  of  'Thomas 
Lord  Cromweir  might  have  represented  Wentworth  Smith, 
a  well-known  dramatic  author  at  the  date  of  the  publication 
of  those  plays."  ^  If  we  refer  to  Fleay,  however,  we  find  that 
Wentworth  Smith  was  "A  hackwriter,  not  one  scrap  of  whose 
work  was  ever  thought  worth  publishing."  ^ 

Schlegel  we  have  seen  says  of  "Oldcastle,"  "Cromwell," 
and  "Locrine,"  that  they  "are  not  only  unquestionably  Shak- 
speare's,  but  deserve  to  be  classed  among  his  best  and  ma- 
turest  works";  and  Tieck  pronounces  "Locrine"  to  be  "The 
earliest  of  Shakspere's  dramas." 

The  scene  opens  with  Ate  entering  in  black,  amid  thunder 
and  lightning,  illuminating  her  way  with  a  torch  in  one  hand 
and  a  sword  in  the  other.  A  lion  pursuing  a  bear  appears, 
then  an  archer  who  slays  him:  — 

^  Knight,  The  Works  of  Shakspere,  supplemental  volume,  p.  196. 
2  Fleay,  A  Chronicle  History  of  the  English  Stage,  p.  299. 

170 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Ate.       So  valiant  Brute,  the  terror  of  the  world, 
Whose  only  lookes  did  scarre  his  enemies. 
The  Archer  death  brought  to  his  latest  end. 
Oh  what  may  long  abide  above  this  ground. 
In  state  of  blisse  and  healthful!  happinesse. 

Each  act  is  introduced  by  Ate  in  an  equally  startling  man- 
ner. In  the  first  scene  Brutus  enters  borne  in  a  chair,  with 
his  three  sons,  Locrine,  Camber,  and  Albanact,  his  brothers 
and  others.  Brutus  speaks  of  approaching  death,  and  his 
brothers  encourage  him  with  praises  of  his  renown.  Brutus, 
however,  proceeds  to  divide  his  kingdom  among  his  sons,  and 
then  puts  the  crown  upon  the  head  of  Locrine  with  these 
words :  — 

Locrine,  stand  up,  and  weare  the  regall  Crowne, 

And  thinke  upon  the  stage  of  Maiestie, 

That  thou  with  honor  well  maist  weare  the  crown. 

And  if  thou  tendrest  these  my  latest  words. 

As  thou  requirst  my  soule  to  be  at  rest, 

As  thou  desirest  thine  owne  securitie. 

Cherish  and  love  thy  new  betrothed  wife. 
Locrine.       No  longer  let  me  wel  enjoy  the  crowne, 

Then  I  do  (honour)  peerlesse  Guendoline. 
Brutus.       Camber. 

Cam.  My  lord. 

Brutus.  The  glorie  of  mine  age, 

And  darling  of  thy  mother  Imogen, 

Take  thou  the  South  for  thy  dominion. 

From  thee  there  shall  proseed  a  royall  race. 

That  shall  maintaine  the  honor  of  this  land, 

And  sway  the  regall  scepter  with  their  hands. 

{turning  to  Albanact) 

And  Albanact,  thy  fathers  onely  joy, 

Youngst  in  yeares,  but  not  the  youngst  in  mind, 

A  perfect  patterne  of  all  chivalrie. 

Take  thou  the  North  for  thy  dominion, 

A  country  full  of  hills  and  ragged  rockes, 

Replenished  with  fearce  untamed  beasts. 

As  correspondent  to  thy  martiall  thoughts. 

Live  long,  my  sonnes,  with  endlesse  happinesse. 

And  beare  firme  concordance  amongst  yourselves. 

Obey  the  counsels  of  these  fathers  grave, 

That  you  may  better  beare  out  violence. 

171 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Brutus  dies  amid  the  lamentations  of  his  friends. 
In  the  second  act,  Humber,  King  of  Scythians,  enters  with 
his  followers  to  dispossess  Albanact  of  his  kingdom. 

Hum.      At  length  the  snaile  doth  clime  the  highest  tops, 
Ascending  up  the  stately  castle  walls; 
At  length  the  water  with  continuall  drops, 
Doth  penetrate  the  hardest  marble  stone; 
At  length  we  are  arrived  in  Albion, 

In  the  battle  which  follows  Albanact  is  defeated  and  slays 
himself  with  his  own  sword. 

Alarme, 

Alba.       Nay,  let  them  flie  that  feare  to  die  the  death, 
That  tremble  at  the  name  of  fatall  mors. 
Nev'r  shall  proud  Humber  boast  or  brag  himselfe 
That  he  hath  put  young  Albanact  to  flight; 
And  least  he  should  triumph  at  my  decay, 
This  sword  shall  reave  his  maister  of  his  life, 
That  oft  hath  sav'd  his  maisters  doubtfuU  strife. 
But,  oh,  my  brethren,  if  you  care  for  me, 
Revenge  my  death  upon  his  traiterous  head. 

Locrine,  hearing  of  the  death  of  his  brother,  resolves  to 
avenge  him,  and  proceeds  to  follow  Humber  to  Albania. 
Act  III,  Scene  ii,  opens  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Humber:  — 

Hum.       Thus  are  we  come,  victorious  conquerors. 
Unto  the  flowing  currents  silver  streames, 
Which,  in  memoriall  of  our  victorie. 
Shall  be  agnominated  by  our  name. 
And  talked  of  by  our  posteritie: 
For  sure  I  hope  before  the  golden  sunne 
Posteth  his  horses  to  faire  Thetis  plaines, 
To  see  the  water  turned  into  blood, 
And  chaunge  his  blewish  hue  to  rufull  red. 

A  battle  follows  and  Humber  is  defeated. 

Hum.       Where  may  I  finde  some  desart  wildernesse, 
Where  I  may  breathe  out  curses  as  I  would, 
And  scare  the  earth  with  my  condemning  voice; 

While  he  is  bemoaning  his  fate  the  ghost  of  Albanact  ap- 
pears to  him,  crying  vindicta. 

172 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Act  IV,  Scene  i,  is  the  Camp  of  Locrine.  Soldiers  enter  lead- 
ing Estrild,  Humber's  Queen,  whose  beauty  bewitches  Locrine. 

Loc.       If  she  have  cause  to  weepe  for  Humber's  death, 
And  shead  sault  teares  for  her  overthrow, 
Locrine  may  well  bewaile  his  proper  griefe, 
Locrine  may  moue  his  owne  peculiar  woe. 
He,  being  conquered,  died  a  speedie  death, 
And  felt  not  long  his  lamentable  smart; 
I,  being  conqueror,  live  a  lingring  life. 
And  feele  the  force  of  Cupid's  suddaine  stroke. 
I  gave  him  cause  to  die  a  speedie  death, 
He  left  me  cause  to  wish  a  speedie  death. 
Oh  that  sweete  face  painted  with  natures  dye. 
Those  roseall  cheeks  mixt  with  a  snowy  white, 
That  decent  necke  surpassing  yvorie. 
Those  comely  brests  which  Venus  well  might  spite. 
Are  like  to  snares  which  wylie  fowlers  wrought. 
Wherein  my  yeelding  heart  is  prisoner  cought. 
The  golden  tresses  of  her  daintie  haire, 
Which  shine  like  rubies  glittering  with  the  sunne, 
Have  so  entrapt  poore  Locrines  lovesick  heart. 
That  from  the  same  no  way  it  can  be  wonne. 

Guendoline  maddened  with  jealousy  raises  with  her  brother 
an  army  against  her  husband,  Locrine,  who  in  a  battle  is  de- 
feated. In  the  scene  Locrine  enters  with  Estrilda:  — 

Loc.  faire  Estrilda,  we  have  lost  the  field; 

Thrasimachus  hath  wonne  the  victorie. 

Farewell,  faire  Estrild,  beauties  paragon, 
Fram'd  in  the  front  of  forlorne  miseries! 
Nor  shall  mine  eies  behold  thy  sunshine  eies, 
But  when  we  meet  in  the  Elysian  fields; 
Thither  I  go  before  with  hastened  pace. 

(Slays  himself.) 
Est.      Break,  hart,  with  sobs  and  greevous  suspirs! 

Streame  forth,  you  teares,  from  forth  my  watery  eies; 
Helpe  me  to  mourne  for  warlike  Locrines  death! 

Shall  Estrild  live,  then,  after  Locrines  death  ? 
Shall  love  of  life  barre  her  from  Locrines  sword .? 

Locrine,  I  come;  Locrine,  I  follow  thee. 

(Kills  herself.) 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Guendoline,  finding  their  bodies,  closes  the  final  scene  with 
these  words :  — 

And  as  for  Locrlne,  our  deceased  spouse, 
Because  he  was  the  sonne  of  mightle  Brute, 
To  whom  we  owe  our  country,  lives  and  goods, 
He  shall  be  buried  in  a  stately  tombe. 
Close  by  his  aged  father  Brutus'  bones, 
With  such  great  pomp  and  great  solemnitie. 
As  well  beseemes  so  brave  a  prince  as  he. 
Let  Estrild  lie  without  the  shallow  vaults, 
Without  the  honour  due  unto  the  dead. 
Because  she  was  the  author  of  this  warre. 
Retire,  brave  followers,  unto  Troynovant, 
Where  we  will  celebrate  these  exequies. 
And  place  young  Locrine  in  his  father's  tombe. 

We  trust  that  the  reader  has  been  able  from  these  extracts, 
necessarily  brief,  to  get  a  somewhat  intelligent  idea  of  the  char- 
acter of  this  play.  We  shall  show  later  that  many  parts  of  it  are 
copied  verbatim,  or  nearly  so,  from  works  accredited  to  Edmund 
Spenser.  This,  of  course,  raises  several  questions.  Was  Spen- 
ser the  author  of  "Locrine"  ?  or.  Was  the  author  of  "Locrine"  a 
shameless  plagiarist  ^  or.  Did  he  avail  himself  of  some  of  his 
old  material  to  serve  a  new  purpose,  as  authors  sometimes  do  ? 

The  Puritan  Widow.  No  play  among  those  admitted  to 
the  two  later  Folios  has  been  discredited  so  generally  as  this. 
Winstanley  ascribed  it  to  Shakspere,  and  likewise  Schlegel, 
who  advances  the  theory  that  for  some  reason  of  his  own  he 
wished  to  adopt  the  style  of  Jonson.  Knight  dismisses  it  con- 
temptuously; Fleay  ascribes  its  authorship  to  Middleton.  It 
was  first  published  in  1607,  and  contains  an  allusion  to  "Rich- 
ard III"  and  "Macbeth."  It  can  hardly  be  thought  worthy  of 
the  great  dramatist,  unless  it  is  regarded  as  a  very  youthful 
work  which  it  shows  evidence  of  being. 

The  play  opens  with  the  widow,  surrounded  by  her  brother, 
son,  and  two  daughters  weeping  over  the  death  of  her  hus- 
band in  which  the  unfeeling  son  refuses  to  join,  and  is  reproved 

174 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

by  the  mother.  One  of  the  daughters  declares  that  she  will 
never  be  married,  and  the  mother  takes  a  like  vow.  These 
vows  play  their  part  in  the  comedy  as  the  widow  and  her 
daughter  on  one  occasion  are  rescued  from  unworthy  suitors 
and  finally  marry. 

The  chief  character  is  Pyeboard,  a  dissolute  charlatan  pos- 
ing as  a  scholar,  whom  Dyce,  the  editor  of  Peek's  Works,  rec- 
ognizes as  a  caricature  of  Peele,  the  word,  Peel,  signifying  a 
board  with  a  handle  employed  by  bakers;  in  other  words, 
a  pie-board.  Pyeboard  in  describing  himself  draws  a  faithful 
portrait  of  Peele :  — 

As  touching  my  profession;  the  multiplicity  of  scholars, 
hatched  and  nourished  in  the  idle  calms  of  peace,  makes  them, 
like  fishes,  one  devour  another;  and  the  community  of  learning 
has  so  played  upon  affections,  that  thereby  almost  religion  is 
come  about  to  phantasy,  and  discredited  by  being  too  much 
spoken  of,  in  so  many  and  mean  mouths.  I  myself,  being  a  scholar 
and  a  graduate,  have  no  other  comfort  by  my  learning,  but  the 
affection  of  my  words,  to  know  how,  scholar-like,  to  name  what 
I  want;  and  can  call  myself  a  beggar  both  in  Greek  and  Latin. 
And  therefore,  not  to  cog  with  peace,  I  '11  not  be  afraid  to  say,  't  is 
a  great  breeder,  but  a  barren  nourisher;  a  great  getter  of  children, 
which  must  either  be  thieves  or  rich  men,  knaves  or  beggars. 

The  tricks  and  quips  of  Pyeboard  furnish  most  of  the 
amusement  of  the  play. 

A  Yorkshire  Tragedy.  This  play  was  founded  upon  a 
tragedy  which  occurred  in  1604,  and  was  published  in  1608, 
with  "W.  Shake-speare,"  on  the  title-page.  Knight  pro- 
nounces it  a  "  Play  of  sterling  merit  in  its  limited  range,"  and 
is  inclined  to  ascribe  it  to  Heywood.^  Fleay,  however,  admits 
that  "The  authorship  of  this  play  has  not  yet  been  ascer- 
tained. "^  Malone  would  give  no  decided  opinion  upon  it, 
nor  does  Phillipps  venture  to  guess  at  its  author,  though  he 

1  Knight,  The  Works  of  Shakspere,  supplemental  volume,  p.  254. 

2  Fleay,  A  Chronicle  History ^  etc.,  p.  158. 

17s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

condemns  it,  and  accounts  for  the  actor's  remaining  silent  about 
the  use  of  his  name  by  assuming  that  he  was  probably  attend- 
ing to  some  of  his  many  lawsuits.  Hazlitt  ascribes  its  author- 
ship to  Heywood,  and  Dr.  Farmer  asserts  that  "Most  certainly 
it  was  not  written  by  our  poet  at  all." 

The  husband,  a  cruel  brute,  maddened  by  excesses  and 
jealousy,  heaps  abuses  upon  his  wife,  a  woman  of  angelic 
character.  She  thus  states  her  desperate  situation :  — 

Wife.       What  will  become  of  us?  All  will  away: 
My  husband  never  ceases  in  expense, 
Both  to  consume  his  credit  and  his  house; 
And  'tis  set  down  by  heaven's  just  decree 
That  riot's  child  must  needs  be  beggary. 
Are  these  the  virtues  that  his  youth  did  promise? 
Dice  and  voluptuous  meetings,  midnight  revels, 
Taking  his  bed  with  surfeits;  ill  beseeming 
The  ancient  honour  of  his  house  and  name? 

Carried  away  by  passion  he  wounds  his  wife,  kills  his  two 
children,  and  leaves  their  nurse  wounded.  Not  contented  with 
this,  he  takes  a  horse  to  seek  his  third  child  with  murderous 
intent,  but  is  overtaken  and  arrested.  On  his  way  to  prison  he 
reaches  his  home,  Calverly  Hall,  where  the  final  scene  is  enacted. 

Hus.       I  am  right  against  my  house,  —  seat  of  my  ancestors: 
I  hear  my  wife's  alive,  but  much  endanger'd. 

{His  wife  is  brought  in.) 

Wife.      O  my  sweet  husband,  my  dear  distress'd  husband, 
Now  in  the  hands  of  unrelenting  lawe, 
My  greatest  sorrow,  my  extremest  bleeding:  — 
Now  my  soul  bleeds. 

This  breaks  down  his  stubborn  nature,  and  declaring  that 
the  evil  spirit  has  at  last  left  him,  he  exclaims :  — 

Bind  him  one  thousand  more,  you  blessed  angels 

In  that  pit  bottomless!  Let  him  not  rise 

To  make  men  act  unnatural  tragedies; 

To  spread  into  a  father,  and  in  fury 

Make  him  his  children's  executioner; 

Murther  his  wife,  his  servants,  and  who  not? 

For  that  man  's  dark,  where  heaven  is  quite  forgot. 

176 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

His  wife's  forgiveness  and  the  sight  of  his  dead  children, 
cause  him  to  cry  out  in  agony  of  spirit :  — 

Here's  weight  enough  to  make  a  heart-string  crack. 
O,  were  it  lawful  that  your  pretty  souls, 
Might  look  from  heaven  into  your  father's  eyes. 
Then  should  you  see  the  penitent  glasses  melt, 
And  both  your  murthers  shoot  upon  my  cheeks! 
But  you  are  playing  in  the  angels'  laps. 
And  will  not  look  on  me,  who,  void  of  grace, 
Kill'd  you  in  beggary. 

As  he  is  borne  away  to  prison,  we  hear  his  wife  in  her  grief: — 

Dearer  than  all  is  my  poor  husband's  life. 
Heaven  give  my  body  strength,  which  is  yet  faint 
With  much  expense  of  blood,  and  I  will  kneel. 
Sue  for  his  life,  number  up  all  my  friends 
To  plead  for  pardon  for  my  dear  husband's  life. 

The  London  Prodigal.  This  play  was  first  pubHshed  in 
1605,  and  the  title-page  bore  the  name  "William  Shake- 
speare." Tieck  ascribes  its  authorship  to  Shakspere.  Knight 
rejects  it.  Fleay  says:  "This  play  is  certainly  by  the  same 
hand  as  the  'Cromwell.'"  ^ 

The  following  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  play. 

Flowerdale,  a  merchant,  who  has  left  his  reckless  son, 
Mathew,  with  his  uncle  in  London,  returning  from  Venice, 
seeks  an  account  of  his  son's  doings,  and  is  told  of  his  vile  life. 
The  son,  returning  during  the  interview,  does  not  recognize 
his  father  who  is  disguised,  and  is  informed  that  his  father  has 
died,  and  disinherited  him;  a  piece  of  news  which  he  receives 
nonchalantly  enough.  The  father  loans  money  to  the  penni- 
less reprobate,  and  enters  his  service  under  the  name  of  Kester. 
Young  Flowerdale  desiring  to  wed  Luce,  the  daughter  of 
Sir  Lancelot  Spurcock,  her  father  compels  her  to  marry  the 
miserable  spendthrift.  To  try  the  temper  of  the  bride  the 
father  and  uncle  cause  the  arrest  of  the  bridegroom  after 
the  ceremony.  .  Mathew  in  vain  begs  his  uncle  to  bail  him,  and 

^  Fleay,  A  Chronicle  History ,  etc.,  p.  300. 

177 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

her  miserly  father  turning  against  her,  he  makes  her  a  present 
of  a  hundred  angels  which  her  dastardly  husband  despoils  her 
of  and  wastes  at  the  gaming-table.  The  young  bride  takes 
service  as  a  Dutch  wench,  and  so  disappears  from  public  view. 
Mathew  Flowerdale  goes  from  bad  to  worse,  and  is  finally  ar- 
rested on  a  charge  of  robbery  and  the  murder  of  his  wife,  who 
goes  to  him  as  he  is  about  to  be  taken  to  prison,  and  throwing 
off  her  disguise  appeals  to  him :  — 

Luce.       O  master  Flowerdale,  if  too  much  grief 

Have  not  stopp'd  up  the  organs  of  your  voice, 
Then  speak  to  her  that. is  thy  faithful  wife; 
Or  doth  contempt  of  me  thus  tie  thy  tongue? 
Turn  not  away;  I  am  no  ^Ethiop, 
No  wanton  Cressid,  nor  a  changing  Helen; 
But  rather  one  made  wretched  by  thy  loss. 
What!  turn'st  thou  still  from  me?  O  then 
I  guess  thee  wofull'st  among  hapless  men. 
M.  Flow.       I  am  indeed,  wife,  wonder  among  wives! 
Thy  chastity  and  virtue  hath  infus'd 
Another  soul  in  me,  red  with  defame, 
For  in  my  blushing  cheeks  is  seen  my  shame. 

The  father  now  declares  himself  to  his  repentant  son, 
whose  promises  of  reformation  are  so  convincing  that  he  is 
restored  to  the  confidence  of  his  friends.  Even  his  hard 
father-in-law  concludes  the  scene  in  these  words :  — 

Sir  Launc.       Well,  being  in  hope  you'll  prove  an  honest  man, 
I  take  you  to  my  favour. 

The  foregoing,  with  "  Pericles,"  comprise  the  seven  plays  ad- 
mitted to  the  Third  Folio.  Knight,  however,  realizing  the  claims 
of  their  titular  author  to  other  plays,  adds  to  these  in  the  supple- 
mental volume  of  his  works, "  Arden  of  Feversham  " ;  "  Edward 
Third";  "George  a  Greene";  "Fair  Em";  "Mucedorus"; 
"The  Birth  of  Merlin";  and  "Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton." 

Arden  of  Feversham  should  especially  gain  our  attention. 
It  was  published  as  early  as  1592.  How  long  before  this  date 
it  was  written,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing;  but  there  can 

178 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

be  no  doubt  that  it  was  the  work  of  a  young  writer.  Like  the 
"Yorkshire  Tragedy,"  it  is  founded  upon  a  local  homicide, 
and  like  that  event  greatly  excited  the  public  mind.  Its  first 
publication  was  in  Holinshed's  "Chronicle"  of  1577.  As  it  oc- 
curred, however,  in  155 1,  it  was  then  an  old  case  with  the  legal 
fraternity,  and  served  them  for  reference  in  similar  cases.  The 
author,  however,  had  a  clearer  legal  conception  of  the  case 
than  the  chronicler,  and  discards  certain  speculative  evidence 
to  advantage.  Tieck  thought  well  enough  of  the  drama  to 
translate  it  into  German,  declaring  it  beyond  question  a 
Shakspere  work.  Knight,  while  hesitating  to  pronounce  posi- 
tive judgment,  says :  — 

We  should  be  at  a  loss  to  assign  it  to  any  writer  whose,  name 
is  associated  with  that  early  period  of  the  drama,  except  Shak- 
spere.^ 

Brandes  regards  it  as 

certainly  one  of  the  most  admirable  plays  of  that  rich  period 
whose  merit  impresses  one  even  when  one  reads  it  for  the  first 
time  in  uncritical  youth.  ^ 

Says  Swinburne :  — 

The  tragic  action  can  hardly  seem  to  any  competent  reader 
the  creature  of  any  then  engaged  in  creation  but  Shakespeare's. 
Assuredly  there  is  none  other  known  to  whom  it  could  be  plau- 
sibly or  even  possibly  assigned.^ 

The  plot  of  the  play  involves  the  destruction  of  a  husband 
by  his  wife,  he  "of  a  tall  and  comely  presence,"  she  "well 
favored  of  shape  and  countenance,"  and  much  of  its  interest 
centers  in  the  providential  escapes  of  the  doomed  man. 

The  scene  is  opened  by  Arden,  who  thus  addresses  his  friend, 

Franklin:  — 

Franklin,  thy  love  prolongs  my  weary  life; 
And  but  for  thee,  how  odious  were  this  life, 

1  Knight,  The  Works  of  Shakspere,  supplemental  volume,  p.  263. 

2  Brandes,  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  204. 

3  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  Shakespeare,  p.  15.  London,  1909. 

179 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

That  shows  me  nothing,  but  torments  my  soul; 
And  those  foul  objects,  that  offend  mine  eyes, 
Which  make  me  wish  that,  for  this  veil  of  heaven, 
The  earth  hung  over  my  head  and  cover'd  me! 
Love-letters  post  'twixt  Mosbie  and  my  wife. 
And  they  have  privy  meetings  in  the  town: 
Franklin.  Be  patient,  gentle  friend,  and  learn  of  me 
To  ease  thy  grief  and  save  her  chastity: 
Entreat  her  fair;  sweet  words  are  fittest  engines 
To  raze  the  flint  walls  of  a  woman's  breast. 

Alice,  the  wife,  enters  and  Arden  reproves  her  gently,  and 
tells  her  that  in  her  sleep  she  uttered  the  name  of  Mosbie,  her 
suspected  lover,  but  she  succeeds  in  quieting  his  jealousy  for 
the  moment.  Arden,  having  departed,  Mosbie,  "a  tailor  by 
occupation,  a  black  swart  man,"  meets  the  deluded  woman: — 

Mosbie.  Where  is  your  husband? 

Alice.  'T  is  now  high  water,  and  he  is  at  the  quay. 
Mosbie.  There  let  him:  henceforward,  know  me  not. 

Alice.  Is  this  the  end  of  all  thy  solemn  oaths  ? 


Arden  to  me  was  dearer  than  my  soul,  — 
And  shall  be  still.  Base  peasant,  get  thee  gone. 

This  is  but  a  lover's  quarrel  and  soon  ends.  Mosbie,  finding 
an  artist  reputed  as  skilful  in  poison,  who  can  paint  a  picture 
which  will  cause  the  death  of  one  looking  upon  it,  introduces 
him  to  Alice  Arden.  The  Charlatan  demands  for  his  work  the 
hand  of  Mosbie' s  sister,  her  waiting  maid,  and  thus  elegantly 
extols  his  art:  — 

For,  as  sharp-witted  poets,  whose  sweet  verse 
Make  heavenly  gods  break  off  their  nectar-draughts, 
And  lay  their  ears  down  to  the  lowly  earth. 
Use  humble  promise  to  their  sacred  muse; 
So  we,  that  are  the  poets'  favourites. 
Must  have  a  love.  Ay,  love  is  the  painter's  muse, 
That  makes  him  frame  a  speaking  countenance, 
A  weeping  eye  that  witnesseth  heart's  grief. 

During  this  interview  Arden  returns,  and,  after  an  unpleas- 
ant clash,  the  gentle  Arden  accepts  Mosbie's  protestations  of 

1 80 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

innocence,  and  the  domestic  sky  is  again  blue ;  but  not  for  long. 
Plot  after  plot  is  laid  for  his  life  by  the  infatuated  wife,  all  of 
which  Arden  escapes.  Here  is  a  description  of  a  London  ruf- 
fian and  thief  who  had  sold  stolen  plate :  — 

Brad.       A  lean-faced  writhen  knave, 

Hawk-nos'd  and  very  hollow-eyed; 

With  mighty  furrows  in  stormy  brows; 

Long  hair  down  to  his  shoulders  curl'd; 

His  chin  was  bare,  but  on  his  upper  lip 

A  mutchado,  which  he  wound  about  his  ear. 
Will.       What  apparel  had  he? 
Brad.       A  watchet  satin  doublet  all  to-torn, 

The  inner  side  did  bear  the  greater  show; 

A  pair  of  threadbare  velvet  hose  seam-rent; 

A  worsted  stocking  rent  above  the  shoe; 

A  livery  cloak,  but  all  the  lace  was  off; 

'Twas  bad,  but  yet  it  serv'd  to  hide  the  plate. 

Black  Will  and  Shakebag  are  engaged  to  murder  Arden,  but 
the  former  while  watching  for  his  victim,  has  his  head  broken 
by  a  window  which  a  careless  apprentice  lets  fall  while  closing 
his  master's  shop.  Providence  having  again  intervened,  the 
two  ruffians,  balked  of  their  prey,  discourse  in  this  highly 
poetic  strain :  — 

Black  Will.  I  tell  thee,  Greene,  the  forlorn  traveller, 

Whose  lips  are  glued  with  summer-scorching  heat. 
Ne'er  long'd  so  much  to  see  a  running  brook 
As  I  to  finish  Arden's  tragedy. 
Shakebag.  I  cannot  paint  my  valour  out  with  words: 
But  give  me  place  and  opportunity. 
Such  mercy  as  the  starven  lioness. 
When  she  is  dry  suck'd  of  her  eager  young. 
Shows  to  the  prey  that  next  encounters  her. 
On  Arden  so  much  pity  would  I  take. 

Michael,  Arden's  serving  man,  is  tampered  with  by  Greene 
the  tool  of  Mosbie,  to  leave  the  doors  of  Arden's  room  in 
the  parsonage  where  he  lodged  in  London  unfastened,  so  that 
Black  Will  can  reach  him.  This,  however,  fails  through 
Michael's  terror  of  the  crime.   This  soliloquy,  says  Knight, 

i8i 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

"in  a  young  poet  would  not  only  be  promise  of  future  great- 
ness, but  it  would  be  the  greatness  itself.  The  conception  is 
wholly  original." 

Michael.  Conflicting  thoughts,  encamped  in  my  breast, 
Awake  me  with  the  echo  of  their  strokes; 
And  I,  a  judge  who  censure  either  side, 
Can  give  to  neither  wished  victory. 
My  master's  kindness  pleads  to  me  for  life, 
With  just  demand,  and  I  must  grant  it  him. 
My  mistress  she  hath  forc'd  me  with  an  oath. 
For  Susan's  sake,  the  which  I  may  not  break, 
For  that  is  nearer  than  a  master's  love: 
That  grim-fac'd  fellow,  pitiless  Black  Will, 
And  Shakebag  stern,  in  bloody  stratagem  — 
(Two  rougher  rufiians  never  liv'd  in  Kent) 
Have  sworn  my  death  if  I  infringe  my  vow  — 
A  dreadful  thing  to  be  consider'd  of. 
Methinks  I  see  them  with  their  bolster'd  hair. 
Staring  and  grinning  in  thy  gentle  face, 
And,  in  their  ruthless  hands  their  daggers  drawn, 
Insulting  o'er  thee  with  a  pack  of  oaths. 
Whilst  thou,  submissive,  pleading  for  relief 
Art  mangled  by  their  ireful  instruments! 
Methinks.  I  hear  them  ask  where  Michael  is. 
And  pitiless  Black  Will  cries,  **Stab  the  slave, 
The  peasant  will  detect  the  tragedy." 
The  wrinkles  of  his  foul  death-threatening  face 
Gape  open  wide  like  graves  to  swallow  men: 
My  death  to  him  is  but  a  merriment; 
And  he  will  murder  me  to  make  him  sport,  — 
He  comes!  he  comes!  Master  Franklin,  help; 
Call  up  the  neighbours,  or  we  are  but  dead. 

Mosbie,  who  is  at  Feversham,  is  also  tormented  with  the 
poignancy  of  his  guilt. 

Mosbie.       Disturbed  thoughts  drive  me  from  company. 
And  dry  my  marrow  with  their  watchfulness : 
Continual  trouble  of  my  moody  brain 
Feebles  my  body  by  excess  of  drink, 
And  nips  me  as  the  bitter  north-east  wind 
Doth  check  the  tender  blossoms  in  the  spring. 
Well  fares  the  man,  howe'er  his  cates  do  taste. 
That  tables  not  with  foul  suspicion; 
182 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

And  he  but  pines  among  his  delicates 
Whose  troubled  mind  is  stuff'd  with  discontent. 
My  golden  time  was  when  I  had  no  gold; 
Though  then  I  wanted,  yet  I  slept  secure; 
My  daily  toil  begat  me  night's  repose, 
My  night's  repose  made  daylight  fresh  to  me: 
But  since  I  climb'd  the  top-bough  of  the  tree, 
And  sought  to  build  my  nest  among  the  clouds, 
Each  gentle  stirring  gale  doth  shake  my  bed. 
And  makes  me  dread  my  downfall  to  the  earth. 

While  thus  morahzing,  AHce  enters,  and  this  scene  Knight 
says,  is  "unmatched  by  any  other  writer  than  Shakspere," 
and  that,  too,  "in  a  play  published  as  early  as  1592,  perhaps 
written  several  years  earlier." 

Mosbie.     Ungentle  Alice,  thy  sorrow  is  my  sore; 

Thou  know'st  it  well,  and  't  is  thy  policy 
To  forge  distressful  looks  to  wound  a  breast 
Where  lies  a  heart  that  dies  when  thou  art  sad; 
It  is  not  love  that  loves  to  anger  love. 

Alice.     It  is  not  love  that  loves  to  murder  love. 
Mosbie.     How  mean  you  that.? 

Alice.     Thou  know'st  how  dearly  Arden  loved  me. 
Mosbie.     And  then  — 

Alice.     And  then  conceal  the  rest,  for  't  is  too  bad. 

Lest  that  my  words  be  carried  with  the  wind. 
And  publish'd  in  the  world  to  both  our  shames! 
I  pray  thee,  Mosbie,  let  our  spring-time  wither; 
Our  harvest  else  will  yield  but  loathsome  weeds: 
Forget,  I  pray  thee,  what  has  pass'd  betwixt  us, 
For  now  I  blush,  and  tremble  at  the  thoughts. 

Arden,  accompanied  by  Franklin  and  his  unworthy  servant, 
now  journeys  to  Rochester  where  on  Rainhamdown,  Black 
Will  and  his  accomplices  are  lying  in  wait  for  him.  Michael, 
who  suspects  that  he  will  also  be  slain  with  his  master,  pricks 
his  horse  so  that  he  halts  and  is  left  behind.  On  the  way 
Franklin  entertains  his  friend  with  a  tale.  In  the  nick  of  time 
Arden  is  joined  by  friends,  and  again  the  conspirators  are 
balked  of  their  prey,  but  finally,  reaching  home  where  Mos- 
bie had  concealed  the  assassin,  he  is  slain.   Franklin  thus 

183 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

announces  to  Alice  the  death  of  her  husband  in  presence  of 
the  Mayor  and  watch  who  are  in  pursuit  of  Black  Will:  — 

Frank.  Arden,  thy  husband,  and  my  friend,  is  slain 


I  fear  he  was  murder'd  in  this  house. 
And  carried  to  the  fields;  for  from  that  place, 
Backwards  and  forwards,  may  you  see 
The  print  of  many  feet  within  the  snow. 

The  play  concludes  thus :  — 

Gentlemen,  we  hope  you'll  pardon  this  naked  tragedy, 
Wherein  no  filed  points  are  foisted  in 
To  make  it  gracious  to  the  ear  or  eye; 
For  simple  truth  is  gracious  enough, 
And  needs  no  other  points  of  glozing  stuff. 

In  other  words,  the  author  relates  "a  plain  unvarnished 
tale"  without  attempt  at  rhetorical  display. 

The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  is  among  the  plays  not  printed 
in  the  First  Folio,  and  one  which  has  received  the  highest  com- 
mendation from  readers  of  critical  taste.  It  was  first  published 
in  quarto  in  1634,  and  bears  on  the  title-page, — 

Written  by  the  memorable  Worthies  of  their  time,  Mr.  John 
Fletcher,  Gent.,  and  Mr.  William  Shakspeare,  Gent. 

Phillipps  refutes  this  on  the  ground  that  the  actor  never 
collaborated  with  any  writer,  and  quotes  Pope's  assertion 
"that  there  was  a  tradition  to  the  effect  that  the  whole  of 
the  'Two  Noble  Kinsmen'  was  written  by  Shakespeare."  ^ 

SaysBrandes:  — 

"Timon  of  Athens"  and  "Pericles,"  which  are  plainly  only 
partially  his  work,  and  "Henry  VIII"  and  "The  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen,"  of  which  we  may  confidently  assert  that  Shakespeare 
had  nothing  to  do  with  them  beyond  the  insertion  of  single  im- 
portant speeches  and  the  addition  of  a  few  valuable  touches. ^ 

1  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  410. 

2  Brandes,  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  11,  p.  275. 

184 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

And  again :  — 

Did  Shakespeare  leave  the  play  unfinished,  and  was  it  com- 
pleted by  Fletcher  after  his  death?  or  did  he  help  Fletcher  by 
writing  or  rewriting  certain  scenes  of  his  play?  The  first  supposi- 
tion is  an  utter  impossibility,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned.^ 

Brandes  then  falls  back  upon  Heminge  and  Condell,  extoll- 
ing their  authority;  but,  curiously  enough,  traverses  himself 
and  discredits  them  by  discarding  "Henry  VHI." 

Coleridge  gives  us  this  opinion  of  it :  — 

1  can  scarcely  retain  a  doubt  as  to  the  first  act's  having  been 
written  by  Shakespeare.  ^ 

Says  Lamb :  — 

That  Fletcher  should  have  copied  Shakespeare's  manner  in  so 
many  entire  scenes  is  not  very  probable;  that  he  could  have  done 
it  with  such  facility  is  to  me  not  certain. 

Fleay  attempts  to  prove  that  the  play  was  written  after  the 
actor's  death,  but  fails  to  show  why  Fletcher  never  claimed 
an  interest  in  it;  instead  he  leaves  us  in  this  quagmire:  — 

There  is  nothing  in  it  above  the  reach  of  Massinger  and 
Fletcher,  but  that  some  things  in  it  are  unworthy  either,  and 
more  likely  to  be  by  some  inferior  hand,  W.  Rowley,  for  instance.^ 

A  score  of  other  contradictory  opinions  could  be  given,  but 
they  would  be  unprofitable.  It  may  be  worth  while,  however, 
to  give  a  brief  synopsis  of  the  play. 

The  story  of  Palamon  and  Arcite  furnishes  the  material  out 
of  which  is  wrought  "The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,''  and  opens 
with  the  entry  of  Hymen  with  flaming  torch,  conducting  to  the 
temple  Theseus,  Hippolyta,  her  sister  Emilia  and  nymphs, 
singing  a  nuptial  song  as  they  strew  the  way  with  flowers. 

^  Brandes,  William  Shakespeare^  vol.  ii,  p.  316. 

2  "Notes  and  Lectures  on  Shakespeare,"  Literary  Remains  of  S.  T.  Coleridge , 
vol.  I,  p.  321.  London,  1849. 

•  Fleay,  A  Chronicle  History,  etc.,  p.  254. 

i8s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  bridal  procession  is  suddenly  arrested  by  three  Queens 
in  mourning,  who  call  upon  Theseus,  the  bridegroom,  to 
avenge  the  murder  of  their  lords  by  Creon,  King  of  Thebes :  — 

I  Queen.  Oh,  pity,  duke! 

Thou  purger  of  the  earth,  draw  thy  fear'd  sword, 
That  does  good  turns  to  the  world;  give  us  the  bones 
Of  our  dead  kings,  that  we  may  chapel  them! 

The  second  Queen  appeals  to  the  bride :  — 

Honour'd  Hippolyta, 
that  hast  slain 
The  scythe-tusk'd  boar;  that,  with  thy  arm  as  strong 
As  it  is  white,  wast  near  to  make  the  male 
To  thy  sex  captive;  but  that  this  thy  lord 
(Born  to  uphold  creation  in  that  honour 
First  nature  styl'd  it  in)  shrunk  thee  into 
The  bound  thou  wast  o'erflowing,  at  once  subduing 
Thy  force,  and  thy  affection;  soldieress, 
Bid  him  that  we,  whom  flaming  war  doth  scorch. 
Under  the  shadow  of  his  sword  may  cool  us! 
Require  him  he  advance  it  o'er  our  heads; 
Speak  't  in  a  woman's  key,  like  such  a  woman 
As  any  of  us  three;  weep  ere  you  fail; 
Lend  us  a  knee; 

But  touch  the  ground  for  us  no  longer  time 
Than  a  dove's  motion,  when  the  head's  pluck'd  off! 

To  this  Hippolyta  responds:  — 

Poor  lady  say  no  more! 
I  had  as  lief  trace  this  good  action  with  you 
As  that  whereto  I  'm  going,  and  never  yet 
Went  I  so  willing  way.   My  lord  is  taken 
Heart-deep  with  your  distress;  let  him  consider; 
I'll  speak  anon. 

The  third  Queen  appeals  to  Hippolyta's  sister,  and  so  per- 
sistent and  eloquent  are  the  distressed  suitors  that  all  are 
deeply  moved  by  them.  Theseus,  however,  orders  the  pro- 
cession to  move  on :  — 

I  Queen.  Oh,  this  celebration 

Will  longer  last,  and  be  more  costly,  than 
Your  suppliants'  war! 

i86 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

The  others,  too,  raise  their  voices  in  grief  at  the  prospective 
delay,  which  moves  Theseus  to  exclaim :  — 

I  will  give  you  comfort 
To  give  your  dead  lords  graves. 

He  then  orders  to 

forth  and  levy 
Our  worthiest  instruments;  whilst  we  despatch 
This  grand  act  of  our  life,  this  daring  deed 
Of  fate  in  wedlock! 

Impatient  of  any  delay  the  suitors  turn  away,  the  first 

Queen  exclaiming:  — 

Let  us  be  widows  to  our  woes!  Delay 
Commends  us  to  a  famishing  hope. 

To  this  Theseus  replies :  — 

Why,  good  ladies. 
This  is  a  service,  whereto  I  am  going, 
Greater  than  any  war;  it  more  imports  me 
Than  all  the  actions  that  I  have  foregone 
Or  futurely  can  cope. 
I  Queen.  The  more  proclaiming 

Our  suit  shall  be  neglected. 

This  attitude  so  affects  Hippolyta  that  she  yields. 

Hip.  Though  much  unlike 

You  should  be  so  transported,  as  much  sorry 

I  should  be  such  a  suitor;  yet  I  think 

Did  I  not,  by  the  abstaining  of  my  joy. 

Which  breeds  a  deeper  longing,  cure  their  surfeit, 

That  craves  a  present  medicine,  I  should  pluck 

All  ladies'  scandal  on  me;  therefore,  sir. 

As  I  shall  here  make  trial  of  my  prayers. 

Either  presuming  them  to  have  some  force, 

Or  sentencing  for  aye  their  vigour  dumb, 

Prorogue  this  business  we  are  going  about,  and  hang 

Your  shield  afore  your  heart,  about  that  neck 

Which  is  my  fee,  and  which  I  freely  lend 

To  do  these  poor  queens  service! 

Emilia  also  appeals  to  Theseus  who  yields  to  the  wishes  of 
his  bride  and  sister:  — 

187 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The.  Pray  stand  up! 

I  am  entreating  of  myself  to  do 
That  which  you  kneel  to  have  me.   Perithous, 
Lead  on  the  bride!   Get  you  and  pray  the  gods 
For  success  and  return;  omit  not  anything 
In  the  pretended  celebration. 

Theseus,  taking  leave  of  his  bride  and  sister,  orders  the 

procession  to  move  on  without  him,  and  that  the  ceremonies 

shall  be  observed  as  though  he  were  present.  As  he  turns  away 

he  utters  these  noble  words  to  his  followers :  — 

As  we  are  men 
Thus  should  we  do;  being  sensually  subdued, 
We  lose  our  humane  title.   Good  cheer,  ladies! 

In  the  next  scene  Palamon  and  Arcite,  the  noble  kinsmen, 

are  introduced  to  us:  — 

Arcite  is  gently  visag'd:  yet  his  eye 

Is  like  an  engine  bent,  or  a  sharp  weapon 

In  a  soft  sheath;  mercy,  and  manly  courage, 

Are  bedfellows  in  his  visage.   Palamon 

Has  a  most  menacing  aspect;  his  brow 

Is  grav'd,  and  seems  to  bury  what  it  frowns  on; 

Yet  sometimes  't  is  not  so,  but  alters  to 

The  quality  of  his  thoughts;  long  time  his  eye 

Will  dwell  upon  his  object;  melancholy 

Becomes  him  nobly;  so  does  Arcite's  mirth; 

But  Palamon's  sadness  is  a  kind  of  mirth. 

So  mingled,  as  if  mirth  did  make  him  sad. 

And  sadness,  merry;  those  darker  humours  that 

Stick  misbecomingly  on  others,  on  him 

Live  in  fair  dwelling. 

Though  they  regard  Creon,  their  uncle,  as  "A  most  un- 
bounded tyrant,"  when  they  are  informed  that  war  is  declared 
against  him  by  Theseus,  they  decide  "That  to  be  neutral  to 
him  were  dishonor,"  and  so  they  join  him  in  the  battle  which 
is  to  decide  his  fate.  In  this  battle  Theseus  is  victor,  and  is 
met  by  the  three  queens. 

J  Queen.  All  the  good  that  may 

Be  wish'd  upon  thy  head,  I  cry  "  amen"  to  '  tl 
Thes.  Th'  impartial  gods,  who  from  the  mounted  heavens 

i88 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

View  us  their  mortal  herd,  behold  who  err, 
And  in  their  time  chastise.   Go,  and  find  out 
The  bones  of  your  dead  lords,  and  honour  them 
With  treble  ceremony! 

The  Queens  having  departed  to  find  the  bodies  of  their 
husbands,  Theseus,  seeing  the  bodies  of  Palamon  and  Arcite, 
inquires  of  a  herald  who  they  are :  — 

Herald.  Men  of  great  quality,  as  may  be  judg'd 

By  their  appointment;  some  of  Thebes  have  told  us 
They  are  sisters'  children,  nephews  to  the  king. 
Thes.  By  th'  helm  of  Mars,  I  saw  them  in  the  war. 
Like  to  a  pair  of  lions,  smear'd  with  prey. 
Make  lanes  in  troops  aghast:  I  fix'd  my  note 
Constantly  on  them;  for  they  were  a  mark 
Worth  a  god's  view!   What  prisoner  was't  that  told  me 
When  I  inquired  their  names.** 

Herald.  With  leave,  they're  call'd 
Arcite  and  Palamon. 
Thes.  Then  like  men  use  'em! 

The  very  lees  of  such,  millions  of  rates 
Exceed  the  wine  of  others;  all  our  surgeons 
Convent  in  their  behoof;  our  richest  balms, 
Rather  than  niggard,  waste!  their  lives  concern  us 
Much  more  than  Thebes  is  worth. 

While  Theseus  is  sweating  on  the  battlefield,  Hippolyta  and 
Emilia  reminiscently  discourse  of  the  love  between  Theseus 
and  his  friend,  Perithous,  which  Emilia  illustrates  by  mention 
of  her  love  for  her  playfellow,  Flavina,  declaring 

That  the  true  love,  'tween  maid  and  maid  may  be 
More  than  in  sex  dividual. 

In  Act  II  we  have  the  kinsmen  in  prison.  Their  nobility  is 

shown  in  these  words :  — 

Yet,  cousin. 
Even  from  the  bottom  of  these  miseries. 
From  all  that  fortune  can  inflict  upon  us, 
I  see  two  comforts  rising,  two  mere  blessings, 
If  the  gods  please  to  hold  here,  —  a  brave  patience 
And  the  enjoying  of  our  griefs  together. 
Whilst  Palamon  is  with  me,  let  me  perish 
If  I  think  this  our  prison! 

189 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

From  a  window  they  see  Emilia  enter  the  adjacent  garden 
with  her  servant. 

Emi.  This  garden  has  a  world  of  pleasure  in  't.    What  flower  is 

this  ? 
Serv.  'T  is  calFd  Narcissus,  madam. 
Emi.  That  was  a  fair  boy  certain,  but  a  fool 

To  love  himself:  were  there  not  maids  enough? 
J  re.  Pray,  forward. 
Pal.  Yes. 

Emi.  Or  were  they  all  hard-hearted? 

Serv.  They  could  not  be  to  one  so  fair. 

Emi.  Thou  wouldst  not? 

Serv.  I  think  I  should  not,  madam. 
Emi.  That's  a  good  wench! 

But  take  heed  to  your  kindness  though! 
Serv.  Why,  madam? 

Emi.  Men  are  mad  things. 
Arc.  Will  you  go  forward,  cousin? 
Emi.  Canst  not  thou  work  such  flowers  in  silk,  wench  ? 
Serv.  Yes. 

Emi.  I'll  have  a  gown  full  of  them;  and  of  these; 
This  is  a  pretty  colour;  will't  not  do 
Rarely  upon  a  skirt,  wench? 

The  kinsmen,  infatuated  with  love  of  EmiHa,  become  jeal- 
ous of  each  other,  and,  while  disputing,  the  jailer  appears  and 
summons  Arcite  to  proceed  with  him  to  Theseus.  Later  he 
returns  without  Arcite,  and  Palamon  asks  in  surprise: — 

Pal.  Where's  Arcite? 

Gaoler.  Banished.   Prince  Perithous 

Obtain'd  his  liberty;  but  never  more. 
Upon  his  oath  and  life,  must  he  set  foot 
Upon  this  kingdom. 

The  jailer  informs  Palamon  that  he  is  to  be  conveyed  to  a 
dungeon,  and  despite  pleading  and  resistance  forces  him 
away.  As  he  leaves  the  window  from  which  he  has  beheld 
Emilia,  he  exclaims :  — 

Pal.  Farewell,  kind  window! 

May  rude  wind  never  hurt  thee!   Oh,  my  lady, 
If  ever  thou  hast  felt  what  sorrow  was. 
Dream  how  I  suffer!   Come,  now  bury  me. 

190 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Arcite,  before  being  banished,  is  permitted  to  take  part  in 
the  athletic  games  in  honor  of  EmiHa's  birthday,  and  win- 
ning, is  brought  wearing  the  garland  of  victory  before  Theseus. 

Thes.  You  have  done  worthily;  I  have  not  seen 
Since  Hercules,  a  man  of  tougher  sinews: 
Whate'er  you  are,  you  run  the  best  and  wrestle. 
That  these  times  can  allow. 
Arc.  I  am  proud  to  please  you. 
Thes.  What  country  bred  you  "i 

Thes.  This;  but  far  off,  prince. 

Thes.  Are  you  a  gentleman.^ 
Arc.  My  father  said  so; 

And  to  those  gentle  uses  gave  me  life. 
Thes.  Are  you  his  heir.^ 
Arc.  His  youngest,  sir. 

Thes.  Your  father 

Sure  is  a  happy  sire  then.   What  prove  you.^ 
Arc.  A  little  of  all  noble  qualities: 

I  could  have  kept  a  hawk,  and  well  have  halloa'd 
To  a  deep  cry  of  dogs;  I  dare  not  praise 
My  feat  in  horsemanship,  yet  they  that  knew  me 
Would  say  it  was  my  best  piece;  last,  and  greatest, 
I  would  be  thought  a  soldier. 
Thes.  You  are  perfect. 

Per.  Upon  my  soul,  a  proper  man! 
Emi.  He  is  so. 

Per.  How  do  you  like  him,  lady.? 
Hip.  I  admire  him: 

I  have  not  seen  so  young  a  man  so  noble 
(If  he  say  true)  of  his  sort. 
Emi.  I  believe. 

His  mother  was  a  wondrous  handsome  woman! 
His  face,  methinks,  goes  that  way. 
Hip.  But  his  body, 

And  fiery  mind,  illustrate  a  brave  father. 
Per.  Mark  how  his  virtue,  like  a  hidden  sun. 
Breaks  through  his  baser  garments. 

Received  into  favor  by  Theseus,  EmiHa  giving  him  the 

choice  of  her  horses  for  the  continuance  of  the  fete,  Theseus 

pleasantly  remarks :  — 

Sister,  beshrew  my  heart,  you  have  a  servant, 
That,  if  I  were  a  woman,  would  be  master; 
But  you  are  wise. 

IQI 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

In  Act  III,  while  the  merrymaking  is  proceeding  in  "Diana's 
Wood/'  Arcite,  as  his  charger  enters  a  thicket,  encounters 
Palamon  in  shackles,  having  escaped  from  prison. 

Pal.  Traitor  kinsman! 

Thou  shouldst  perceive  my  passion,  if  these  signs 
Of  prisonment  were  off  me,  and  this  hand 
But  owner  of  a  sword.    By  all  oaths  in  one, 
I,  and  the  justice  of  my  love,  would  make  thee 
A  confess'd  traitor!   Oh,  thou  most  perfidious 
That  ever  gently  look'd!  the  void'st  of  honour 
That  e'er  bore  gentle  token!  falsest  cousin 
That  ever  blood  made  kin!   call'st  thou  her  thine? 

Arcite  in  vain  endeavors  to  appease  him,  and  urges  him  to 
remain  in  hiding  till  he  returns.  Palamon  consents,  and  when 
night  falls  Arcite  brings  him  food,  wine,  and  files  to  remove 
his  fetters.  Palamon,  mad  with  jealousy,  persists  in  insulting 
him,  and  Arcite  finally  promises  to  return  and  meet  him  in 
combat. 

In  Act  III,  Scene  vi,  Palamon  enters  "from  the  Bush," 
then  Arcite  "with  armours  and  swords  " : — 

Arc.  Good  morrow,  noble  kinsman! 

Pal.  I  have  put  you 

To  too  much  pains,  sir. 
Arc.  That  too  much,  fair  cousin, 

Is  but  a  debt  to  honour,  and  my  duty. 
Pal.  Would  you  were  so  in  all,  sir!   I  could  wish  you 

As  kind  a  kinsman,  as  you  force  me -find 

A  beneficial  foe,  that  my  embraces 

Might  thank  you,  not  my  blows. 
Arc.  I  shall  think  either, 

Well  done,  a  noble  recompense. 

Palamon  asks  Arcite  where  he  got  so  fine  a  suit  of  armor 
for  him,  and  Arcite  replies  that  he  had  to  steal  it  from  the 
duke.  They  buckle  each  other's  armor. 

Pal.  Thank  you,  Arcite! 

How  do  I  look.?  am  I  fall'n  much  away? 
Arc.  Faith,  very  little;  Love  has  us'd  you  kindly. 
Pal.  I'll  warrant  thee  I'll  strike  home. 

192 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Arc.  Do,  and  spare  not! 

I  '11  give  you  cause,  sweet  cousin. 
Pal.  Now  to  you,  sir! 

Methinks  this  armour 's  very  like  that,  Arcite, 

Thou  wor'st  that  day  the  three  kings  fell,  but  lighter. 
Arc.  That  was  a  very  good  one;  and  that  day 

I  well  remember,  you  outdid  me,  cousin; 

I  never  saw  such  valour;  when  you  charged 

Upon  the  left  wing  of  the  enemy, 

I  spurred  hard  to  come  up,  and  under  me 

I  had  a  right  good  horse. 
Pal.  You  had  indeed; 

A  bright-bay,  I  remember. 

While  fighting  they  are  surprised  by  Theseus,  Hippolyta, 
and  Emiha,  with  train.  Theseus,  furious  at  this  infraction  of 
his  laws,  condemns  both  to  death,  but  yields  to  the  pleading  of 
Hippolyta  and  Emilia  to  spare  them,  and  offers  Emilia  her 
choice  of  them. 

Thes.  Say,  Emilia 

If  one  of  them  were  dead,  as  one  must  be,  are  you 

Content  to  take  the  other  to  your  husband."* 

They  cannot  both  enjoy  you;  they  are  princes 

As  goodly  as  your  own  eyes,  and  as  noble 

As  ever  Fame  yet  spoke  of;  look  upon  them, 

And  if  you  can  love,  end  this  difference! 

I  give  consent!  are  you  content,  too,  princes? 

Emilia  refuses  to  make  choice  which  will  condemn  one  to 
death,  and  Theseus  orders  them  to  go  to  their  own  country, 
and  return  within  a  month,  during  which  time  he  will  plant  a 
pyramid,  and  if  either 

Can  force  his  cousin 

By  fair  and  knightly  strength  to  touch  the  pillar, 

he  shall  wed  Emilia,  and  the  other  shall  be  slain. 

In  Act  IV,  Scene  ii,  Emilia  appears  with  the  pictures  of  the 
two  kinsmen :  — 

Emi.  Yet  I  may  bind  those  wounds  up,  that  must  open 
And  bleed  to  death  for  my  sake  else;  I  *11  choose, 
And  end  their  strife;  two  such  young  handsome  men 

193 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Shall  never  fall  for  me:  their  weeping  mothers, 

Following  the  dead-cold  ashes  of  their  sons, 

Shall  never  curse  my  cruelty.   Good  Heav'n, 

What  a  sweet  face  has  Arcite!   If  wise  Nature, 

With  all  her  best  endowments,  all  those  beauties 

She  sows  into  the  births  of  noble  bodies. 

Were  here  a  mortal  woman,  and  had  in  her 

The  coy  denials  of  young  maids,  yet  doubtless 

She  would  run  mad  for  this  man:  what  an  eye! 

Of  what  a  fiery  sparkle,  and  quick  sweetness, 

Has  this  young  prince!  here  Love  himself  sits  smiling; 

Just  such  another  wanton  Ganymede 

Set  Jove  afire,  and  enforc'd  the  god 

Snatch  up  the  goodly  boy,  and  set  him  by  him 

A  shining  constellation!  what  a  brow, 

Of  what  a  spacious  majesty,  he  carries, 

Arch'd  like  the  great-ey'd  Juno's,  but  far  sweeter. 

Smoother  than  Pelops'  shoulder!   Fame  and  Honour, 

Methinks,  from  hence,  as  from  a  promontory 

Pointed  in  heav'n,  should  clap  their  wings,  and  sing 

To  all  the  under-world,  the  loves  and  fights 

Of  gods  and  such  men  near  'em.   Palamon 

Is  but  his  foil;  to  him,  a  mere  dull  shadow; 

He 's  swarth  and  meagre,  of  an  eye  as  heavy 

As  if  he  M  lost  his  mother;  a  still  temper. 

No  stirring  in  him,  no  alacrity; 

Of  all  this  sprightly  sharpness,  not  a  smile. 

Yet  these  that  we  count  errors,  may  become  him; 

Narcissus  was  a  sad  boy,  but  a  heavenly. 

Oh,  who  can  find  the  bent  of  woman's  fancy? 

I  am  a  fool,  my  reason  is  lost  to  me! 

I  have  no  choice,  and  I  have  lied  so  lewdly. 

That  women  ought  to  beat  me.   On  my  knees 

I  ask  thy  pardon,  Palamon!   Thou  art  alone. 

And  only  beautiful;  and  these  thy  eyes, 

These  the  bright  lamps  of  beauty,  that  command 

And  threaten  love,  and  what  young  maid  dare  cross  'em.^ 

What  a  bold  gravity,  and  yet  inviting. 

Has  this  brown  manly  face!   Oh,  Love,  this  only 

From  this  hour  is  complexion;  lie  there,  Arcite! 

A  messenger  announces  the  return  of  Palamon  and  Arcite. 
In  the  battle  that  ensues  Arcite  wins.  In  Scene  vi,  the  execu- 
tion of  Palamon  is  about  to  take  place  when  Perithous  arrests 
it  with  the  tidings  that  Arcite  has  been  thrown  from  the 

194 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

black  horse  formerly  given  him  by  Emilia,  and  desires  to  see 
Palamon.  Arcite  is  brought  in:  — 

Pal.  Oh,  miserable  end  of  our  alliance! 

The  gods  are  mighty!  Arcite,  if  thy  heart, 

Thy  worthy  manly  heart,  be  yet  unbroken, 

Give  me  thy  last  words!   I  am  Palamon, 

One  that  yet  loves  thee  dying. 
Arc.  Take  Emilia, 

And  with  her  all  the  world's  joy.   Reach  thy  hand; 

Farewell!   I've  told  my  last  hour.   I  was  false. 

Yet  never  treacherous:  forgive  me,  cousin! 

One  kiss  from  fair  Emilia;  'T  is  done: 

Take  her,  I  die.  {Dies.) 

Pal.  Thy  brave  soul  seek  Elysium! 

Emi.  I'll  close  thine  eyes,  prince;  blessed  souls  be  with  thee! 

Thou  art  a  right  good  man;  and  while  I  live 

This  day  I  give  to  tears. 
Pal.  And  I  to  honour. 

Phillipps  speaks  of  "Edward  H,"  "Edward  HI/'  and 
"Edward  IV,"  as  having  been  called  "Shakespeare"  plays. 
He  might  have  added  "Edward  I."  With  two  exceptions  we 
then  have  a  complete  series  of  dramatic  histories,  "Henry  I," 
1 100-35,  to  "Henry  VHI,"  1509-47.  Does  this  indicate  a 
design  to  produce  a  dramatic  history  of  this  period  .^  One  of 
the  exceptions  named  is  the  omission  of  the  successor  of  King 
John,  namely,  Henry  HI.  If  any  play  of  this  reign  was  writ- 
ten it  has  disappeared.  In  Fleay's  transcript  of  the  Stationers' 
Registers  we  find  an  entry,  under  date  of  1653,^  which  would 
indicate  that  "Henry  II"  was  thought  to  be  a  work  of  collab- 
oration and  "Henry  I"  of  Shakespeare,  but  this  cannot  be 
considered  valid  evidence.  The  manuscripts  of  "Henry  I" 
and  "Henry  II "  were  in  a  large  collection  of  manuscript  plays 
owned  by  John  Warburton,  Somerset  herald  of  arms,  most  of 
which  were  unfortunately  destroyed  by  his  cook  in  1730.  The 
other  exception  is  "Henry  VII,"  which  was  never  dramatized. 
We  have  in  its  place,  not  a  dramatic  but  a  prose  history  of 
this  reign,  written  by  Francis  Bacon.  Concerning  "Henry 

^  Fleay,  A  Chronicle  History ^  etc.,  p.  359. 

19s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

VIII/'  the  last  of  the  series,  is  this  singular  fact,  that  Bacon 
was  supposed  to  be  writing  a  history  of  this  reign,  which 
would  have  completed  the  series,  yet  but  a  fragment  of  this 
history  ever  came  to  light. ^  A  dramatic  version,  however,  of 
"Henry  VHI"  appeared,  and  was  printed  in  the  "Shake- 
speare" Folio.  All  the  dramatic  histories  in  this  long  series  of 
kings,  covering  nearly  four  hundred  and  fifty  years,  were  once 
thought  to  be  the  work  of  the  author  of  the  Folio  plays.  It  is 
a  notable  fact  that  Bacon  begins  his  history  of  Henry  VII  at 
the  close  of  the  battle  of  Bosworth  Field,  taking  it  up  at  the 
point  where  the  drama  of  "  Richard  III "  leaves  it.  Henry  was 
then  twenty-eight  years  old,  and  had  completed  more  than 
half  his  life.  One  would  suppose  that  Bacon  would  begin  his 
history  with  an  account  of  his  birth  and  continue  to  the  great 
battle  which  gave  him  the  throne,  and  we  may  well  ask,  why 
did  he  make  his  history  a  continuation,  as  it  were,  of  "Rich- 
ard III"?  Is  there  not  here  a  clear  evidence  of  design?  At 
the  present  time  we  find  the  four  "Edwards"  arbitrarily 
assigned  to  others:  the  first  to  Peele,  the  second  and  third  to 
Marlowe,  and  the  fourth  to  Heywood.  As  the  second  and 
third  have  been  so  far  accepted  as  to  be  now  found  among 
"Shakespeare"  plays  as  "doubtful,"  which  means  that  ortho- 
dox critics  diff^er  respecting  them,  as  they  still  do  respecting 
several  in  the  Canon,  we  will  briefly  consider  them. 

Edward  II  begins  with  the  entrance  upon  the  scene  of 
Gaveston,  the  favorite  of  the  King,  who  has  been  exiled  to 
France  by  the  King's  father.  He  is  reading  a  letter  from  the 
King  recalling  him  to  England,  beginning:  — 

My  father  is  deceased!   Come,  Gaveston, 

And  share  the  kingdom  with  thy  dearest  friend. 

The  character  of  Gaveston  for  whom  the  Prince,  now 
Edward  II,  had  conceived  one  of  those  strange  passions  of 

*  This  is  in  additional  MSS.  5503  f,  12O  b,  Brit.  Mu8. 
196 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

which  there  are  several  historic  examples,  is  shown  by  his  ex- 
pressions upon  reading  the  letter.  The  infatuation  of  the 
King  for  Gaveston  proves  his  ruin. 

Gav.  Ah!  words  that  make  me  surfeit  with  delight! 
What  greater  bliss  can  hap  to  Gaveston, 
Than  live  and  be  the  favorite  of  a  king! 


Farewell  base  stooping  to  the  lordly  peers! 
My  knee  shall  bow  to  none  but  to  the  king. 
As  for  the  multitude,  they  are  but  sparks, 
Raked  up  in  embers  of  their  poverty:  — 
Tanti;  I'll  fawn  first  on  the  wind 
That  glanceth  at  my  lips,  and  flieth  away. 

Gaveston  arrives  in  England  and  hears,  without  being 
observed,  an  altercation  of  the  nobles,  comprising  the  two 
Mortimers,  Lancaster,  Kent  and  Warwick,  with  the  King  on 
account  of  his  recall. 

Edw.  Will  you  not  grant  me  this?   In  spite  of  them 
I'll  have  my  will;  and  these  two  Mortimers, 
That  cross  me  thus,  shall  know  I  am  displeased. 

Y.  Mor.  If  you  love  us,  my  lord,  hate  Gaveston. 

Gav.  That  villain  Mortimer,  I'll  be  his  death!  {Aside. 

Y.  Mot.  Mine  uncle  here,  this  earl,  and  I  myself. 
Were  sworn  unto  your  father  at  his  death, 
That  he  should  ne'er  return  into  the  realm: 
And  know,  my  lord,  ere  I  will  break  my  oath, 
This  sword  of  mine,  that  should  offend  your  foes, 
Shall  sleep  within  the  scabbard  at  thy  need. 
And  underneath  thy  banners  march  who  will, 
For  Mortimer  will  hang  his  armour  up. 
Gav.  Mort  dieu !  {Aside. 

Edw.  Well,  Mortimer,  I  '11  make  thee  rue  these  words. 
Beseems  it  thee  to  contradict  thy  king? 
Frown'st  thou  thereat,  aspiring  Lancaster? 
Thy  sword  shall  plane  the  furrows  of  thy  brows, 
And  hew  these  knees  that  now  are  grown  so  stiff. 
I  will  have  Gaveston;  and  you  shall  know 
What  danger  't  is  to  stand  against  your  king. 

The  King's  unnatural  love  for  Gaveston  causes  him  to 
throw  his  Bishop  into  the  Tower  and  bestow  his  wealth  upon 
his  favorite.  He  even  neglects  his  Queen. 

197 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Enter  Queen  Isabella, 
Y.  Mot.  Madam,  whither  walks  your  majesty  so  fast? 
Queen.  Unto  the  forest,  gentle  Mortimer, 

To  live  in  grief  and  baleful  discontent; 
For  now,  my  lord,  the  king  regards  me  not, 
But  doats  upon  the  love  of  Gaveston. 
He  claps  his  cheek,  and  hangs  about  his  neck. 
Smiles  in  his  face,  and  whispers  in  his  ears; 
And  when  I  come  he  frowns,  as  who  should  say, 
"Go  whither  thou  wilt,  seeing  I  have  Gaveston." 

The  nobles  force  the  King  to  banish  his  favorite. 

Edw.  {mourning).  He's  gone,  and  for  his  absence  thus  I  mourn. 
Did  never  sorrow  go  so  near  my  heart, 
As  doth  the  want  of  my  sweet  Gaveston! 
And  could  my  crown's  revenue  bring  him  back, 
I  would  freely  give  it  to  his  enemies. 
And  think  I  gained,  having  bought  so  dear  a  friend. 

Young  Mortimer,  influenced  by  the  Queen  who  desires  to 
regain  the  King's  love,  persuades  his  fellow  nobles  to  consent 
to  have  Gaveston  recalled,  intending  finally  to  work  his  ruin. 

Edw.  My  heart  is  as  an  anvil  unto  sorrow, 

Which  beats  upon  it  like  the  Cyclops'  hammers. 
And  with  the  noise  turns  up  my  giddy  brain, 
And  makes  me  frantic  for  my  Gaveston. 
Ah!  had  some  bloodless  fury  rose  from  hell. 
And  with  my  kingly  sceptre  struck  me  dead, 
When  I  was  forced  to  leave  my  Gaveston! 
Lan.  Diablo!  what  passions  call  you  these? 
Queen.  My  gracious  lord,  I  come  to  bring  you  news, 
Edw.  That  you  have  parled  with  your  Mortimer? 
Queen.  That  Gaveston,  my  lord,  shall  be  repealed. 
Edw.  Repealed!  the  news  is  too  sweet  to  be  true! 
Queen.  But  will  you  love  me,  if  you  find  it  so? 

Edw.  If  it  be  so,  what  will  not  Edward  do? 
Queen.  For  Gaveston,  but  not  for  Isabel. 
Edw.  For  thee,  fair  queen,  if  thou  lov'st  Gaveston. 
I  '11  hang  a  golden  tongue  about  thy  neck. 
Seeing  thou  hast  pleaded  with  so  good  success. 
Queen.  No  other  jewels  hang  about  my  neck 

Than  these,  my  lord;  nor  let  me  have  more  wealth 
Than  I  may  fetch  from  this  rich  treasury  — 
O  how  a  kiss  revives  poor  Isabel! 

198 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Edw.  Once  more  receive  my  hand;  and  let  this  be 
A  second  marriage  'twixt  thyself  and  me. 
Queen.  And  may  it  prove  more  happy  than  the  first! 
My  gentle  lord,  bespeak  these  nobles  fair, 
That  wait  attendance  for  a  gracious  look, 
And  on  their  knees  salute  your  majesty. 

In  his  joy  the  weak  King  heaps  favors  upon  his  nobles,  and 
the  skies  are  again  blue.  The  senior  Mortimer  pleads  with 
Young  Mortimer  to  keep  peace  with  Edward. 

Y.  Mor.  Nephew,  I  must  to  Scotland;  thou  stayest  here. 

Leave  now  t'  oppose  thyself  against  the  king. 

Thou  seest  by  nature  he  is  mild  and  calm. 

And,  seeing  his  mind  so  doats  on  Gaveston, 

Let  him  without  controlment  have  his  will. 

The  mightiest  kings  have  had  their  minions: 

Great  Alexander  loved  Hephestion; 

The  conquering  Hercules  for  his  Hylas  wept; 

And  for  Patroclus  stern  Achilles  drooped. 

And  not  kings  only,  but  the  wisest  men; 

The  Roman  Tully  loved  Octavius; 

Grave  Socrates  wild  Alcibiades. 

Then  let  his  grace,  whose  youth  is  flexible, 

And  promiseth  as  much  as  we  can  wish. 

Freely  enjoy  that  vain,  light-headed  earl; 

For  riper  years  will  wean  him  from  such  toys. 
y.  Mor.  Uncle,  his  wanton  humour  grieves  not  me; 

But  this  I  scorn,  that  one  so  basely  born 

Should  by  his  sovereign's  favour  grow  so  pert, 
.    ■  And  riot  it  with  the  treasure  of  the  realm. 

While  soldiers  mutiny  for  want  of  pay, 

He  wears  a  lord's  revenue  on  his  back. 

And  Midas-like,  he  jets  it  in  the  court. 

With  base  outlandish  cullions  at  his  heels. 

Whose  proud  fantastic  liveries  make  such  show, 

As  if  that  Proteus,  god  of  shapes,  appeared. 

I  have  not  seen  a  dapper  Jack  so  brisk; 

He  wears  a  short  Italian  hooded  cloak. 

Larded  with  pearl,  and,  in  his  Tuscan  cap, 

A  jewel  of  more  value  than  the  crown. 

While  others  walk  below,  the  king  and  he 

From  out  a  window  laugh  at  such  as  we. 

And  flout  our  train,  and  jest  at  our  attire. 

Uncle,  't  is  this  makes  me  impatient. 

199 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Scene  ii  in  Act  ii  opens  with  the  King  impatient  for  the 
return  of  Gaveston :  — 

Edzv.  How  now!  what  news?  is  Gaveston  arrived? 
Y.  Mor.  Nothing  but  Gaveston!  what  means  your  grace? 
You  have  matters  of  more  weight  to  think  upon; 
The  King  of  France  sets  foot  in  Normandy. 
Edw.  A  trifle!  we'll  expell  him  when  we  please 
But  tell  me,  Mortimer,  what 's  thy  device 
Against  the  stately  triumph  we  decreed  ? 
Y.  Mor,  A  homely  one,  my  lord,  not  worth  the  telling. 

Edw.  Pray  thee  let  me  know  it. 
Y.  Mor.  But,  seeing  you  are  so  desirous,  thus  it  is; 
A  lofty  cedar-tree,  fair  flourishing. 
On  whose  top-branches  kingly  eagles  perch, 
And  by  the  bark  a  canker  creeps  me  up. 
And  gets  into  the  highest  bough  of  all; 
The  motto,  JEque  tandem. 
Edzv.  And  what  is  yours,  my  lord  of  Lancaster? 
Lan.  My  lord,  mine 's  more  obscure  than  Mortimer's. 
Pliny  reports  there  is  a  flying  fish 
Which  all  the  other  fishes  deadly  hate. 
And  therefore,  being  pursued,  it  takes  the  air; 
No  sooner  is  it  up,  but  there's  a  fowl 
That  seizeth  it:  this  fish,  my  lord,  I  bear, 
The  motto  this;  Undique  mors  est. 
Kent.  Proud  Mortimer!  ungentle  Lancaster! 

Is  this  the  love  you  bear  your  sovereign? 
Is  this  the  fruit  your  reconcilement  bears? 
Can  you  in  words  make  show  of  amity. 
And  in  your  shields  display  your  rancorous  minds! 
What  call  you  this  but  private  libelling 
Against  the  Earl  of  Cornwall  and  my  brother? 
Queen.  Sweet  husband,  be  content,  they  all  love  you. 
Edw.  They  love  me  not  that  hate  my  Gaveston. 
I  am  that  cedar,  shake  me  not  too  much; 
And  you  the  eagles;  soar  ye  ne'er  so  high, 
I  have  the  jesses  that  will  pull  you  down; 
And  jEque  tandem  shall  that  canker  cry 
'  Unto  the  proudest  peer  of  Britainy. 

^  Though  thou  compar'st  him  to  a  flying  fish, 

And  threatenest  death  whether  he  rise  or  fall, 
'T  is  not  the  hugest  monster  of  the  sea, 
[  Nor  foulest  harpy  that  shall  swallow  him. 


200 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Gaveston  appears :  — 

Edw.  My  Gaveston!  welcome  to  Tynemouth!  welcome  to  thy 
friend ! 

Gav.  Sweet  lord  and  king,  your  speech  preventeth  mine, 
Yet  have  I  words  left  to  express  my  joy: 
The  shepherd  nipt  with  biting  winter's  rage 
Frolics  not  more  to  see  the  painted  spring, 
Than  I  do  to  behold  your  majesty. 

The  King  orders  his  nobles  to  welcome  his  favorite  who 
resents  their  somewhat  exaggerated  salutes. 

Gav.  My  lord,  I  cannot  brook  these  injuries. 
Queen.  Ah  me!  poor  soul,  when  these  begin  to  jar.  {Aside. 

Edw.  Return  it  to  their  throats,  I'll  be  thy  warrant. 
Gav.  Base,  leaden  earls,  that  glory  in  your  birth. 
Go  sit  at  home  and  eat  your  tenants'  beef; 
And  come  not  here  to  scoff  at  Gaveston, 
Whose  mounting  thoughts  did  never  creep  so  low 
As  to  bestow  a  look  on  such  as  you. 

A  quarrel  follows;  bad  news  arrives  from  Scotland  and 
France.  Incensed  at  the  King's  neglect  of  the  realm  and  his 
infatuation  for  Gaveston  the  nobles  revolt. 

Y.  Mor.  Nay,  now  you  're  here  alone,  I  '11  speak  my  mind, 

Lan.  And  so  will  I,  and  then,  my  lord,  farewell. 
Y.  Mor.  The  idle  triumphs,  masks,  lascivious  shows, 

And  prodigal  gifts  bestowed  on  Gaveston, 

Have  drawn  thy  treasury  dry,  and  made  thee  weak; 

The  murmuring  commons,  overstretched,  break. 
Lan.  Look  for  rebellion,  look  to  be  deposed; 

Thy  garrisons  are  beaten  out  of  France, 

And,  lame  and  poor,  lie  groaning  at  the  gates. 

The  wild  Oneyl,  with  swarms  of  Irish  kerns. 

Lives  uncontrolled  within  the  English  pale. 

Unto  the  walls  of  York  the  Scots  make  road, 

And  unresisted  drive  away  rich  spoils. 
Y.  Mor.  The  haughty  Dane  commands  the  narrow  seas, 

While  in  the  harbour  ride  thy  ships  unrigged. 
Lan.  What  foreign  prince  sends  thee  ambassadors.? 
Y,  Mor.  Who  loves  thee,  but  a  sort  of  flatterers  ? 
Lan.  Thy  gentle  queen,  sole  sister  to  Valois, 

Complains  that  thou  hast  left  her  all  forlorn. 
Y.  Mor.  Thy  court  is  naked,  being  bereft  of  those 

That  make  a  king  seem  glorious  to  the  world; 

20I 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

I  mean  the  peers,  whom  thou  should'st  dearly  love: 
Libels  are  cast  against  thee  in  the  street: 
Ballads  and  rhymes  made  of  thy  overthrow. 
Lan,  The  Northern  borderers  seeing  their  houses  burnt, 
Their  wives  and  children  slain,  run  up  and  down. 
Cursing  the  name  of  thee  and  Gaveston. 
Y.  Mor.  When  wert  thou  in  the  field  with  banners  spread? 

But  once;  and  then  thy  soldiers  marched  like  players, 
With  garish  robes,  not  armour;  and  thyself, 
Bedaubed  with  gold,  rode  laughing  at  the  rest. 
Nodding  and  shaking  of  thy  spangled  crest. 
Where  women's  favours  hung  like  labels  down. 

The  King  drives  his  nobles  and  even  his  brother  Kent,  who 
has  hitherto  stood  by  him,  from  his  presence,  and  they  revolt 
and  storm  the  castle. 

Enter  the  Barons.    Alarums. 

Lan.  I  wonder  how  he  scaped! 
Y.  Mor.  Who  's  this,  the  queen.? 
Queen.  Aye,  Mortimer,  the  miserable  queen 

Whose  pining  heart  her  inward  sighs  have  blasted, 
And  body  with  continual  mourning  wasted; 
These  hands  are  tired  with  haling  of  my  lord 
From  Gaveston,  from  wicked  Gaveston, 
And  all  in  vain;  for,  when  I  speak  him  fair. 
He  turns  away,  and  smiles  upon  his  minion. 
Y.  Mor.  Cease  to  lament,  and  tell  us  where  *s  the  king.? 
Queen.  What  would  you  with  the  king?  is 't  him  you  seek? 
Lan.  No,  madam,  but  that  cursed  Gaveston. 
Far  be  it  from  the  thought  of  Lancaster, 
To  offer  violence  to  his  sovereign. 
We  would  but  rid  the  realm  of  Gaveston; 
Tell  us  where  he  remains,  and  he  shall  die. 

Gaveston  is  finally  captured  and  executed.  Edward,  en- 
raged against  his  barons,  is  encouraged  by  young  Spencer,  one 
of  his  adherents,  to  revenge  himself  upon  them.  While  he  is 
discoursing  with  him  his  father  arrives  upon  the  scene. 

0.  Spen.  Long  live  my  sovereign,  the  noble  Edward  — 
In  peace  triumphant,  fortunate  in  wars! 
Edw.  Welcome,  old  man,  com'st  thou  in  Edward's  aid? 
Then  tell  thy  prince  of  whence,  and  what  thou  art. 

202 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

0.  Spen.  Lo,  with  a  band  of  bowmen  and  of  pikes, 

Brown  bills  and  targeteers,  four  hundred  strong, 
Sworn  to  defend  King  Edward's  royal  right, 
I  come  in  person  to  your  majesty. 
Spencer,  the  father  of  Hugh  Spencer  there. 
Bound  to  your  highness  everlastingly, 
For  favour  done,  in  him,  unto  us  all. 
Edzv.  Thy  father,  Spencer.^ 

Y.  Spen.  True,  an  it  like  your  grace, 

That  pours,  in  lieu  of  all  your  goodness  shown, 
His  life,  my  lord,  before  your  princely  feet. 
Edzv.  Welcome  ten  thousand  times,  old  man,  again. 
Spencer,  this  love,  this  kindness  to  thy  king. 
Argues  thy  noble  mind  and  disposition. 
Spencer,  I  here  create  thee  Earl  of  Wiltshire, 
And  daily  will  enrich  thee  with  our  favour. 
That,  as  the  sunshine,  shall  reflect  o'er  thee. 
Besides,  the  more  to  manifest  our  love 
Because  we  hear  Lord  Bruce  doth  sell  his  land, 
And  that  the  Mortimers  are  in  hand  withal. 
Thou  shalt  have  crowns  of  us  t' outbid  the  barons; 
And,  Spencer,  spare  them  not,  (but)  lay  it  on. 
Soldiers,  a  largess,  and  thrice  welcome  all! 

The  barons,  having  rid  themselves  of  the  pernicious  Gaves- 
ton  who  has  pandered  to  the  King's  folly  to  the  great  injury  of 
the  realm,  now  come  with  their  herald  to  offer  the  King  their 
allegiance  and  support. 

Her.  Long  live  King  Edward,  England's  lawful  lord! 

Edzv.  So  wish  not  they  I  wis  that  sent  thee  hither, 

Thou  com'st  from  Mortimer  and  his  complices, 
A  ranker  rout  of  rebels  never  was. 
Well,  say  thy  message. 

Her.  The  barons  up  in  arms,  by  me  salute 

Your  highness  with  long  life  and  happiness; 

And  bid  me  say,  as  plainer  to  your  grace. 

That  if  without  effusion  of  blood. 

You  will  this  grief  have  ease  and  remedy. 

That  from  your  princely  person  you  remove 

This  Spencer,  as  a  putrefying  branch. 

That  deads  the  royal  vine,  whose  golden  leaves 

Empale  your  princely  head,  your  diadem. 

Whose  brightness  such  pernicious  upstarts  dim, 

Say  they;  and  lovingly  advise  your  grace, 

203 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

To  cherish  virtue  and  nobility, 
And  have  old  servitors  in  high  esteem, 
And  shake  off  smooth  dissembling  flatterers: 
This  granted,  they,  their  honours,  and  their  lives, 
Are  to  your  highness  vowed  and  consecrate. 
Y.  Spen.  Ah,  traitors!  will  they  still  display  their  pride? 
Edzv.  Away,  tarry  no  answer,  but  be  gone! 

Rebels,  will  they  appoint  their  sovereign 
His  sports,  his  pleasures,  and  his  company? 
Yet,  ere  thou  go,  see  how  I  do  divorce 

(Embraces  Spencer. 
Spencer  from  me.  —  Now  get  thee  to  thy  lords, 
And  tell  them  I  will  come  to  chastise  them 
For  murthering  Gaveston;  hie  thee,  get  thee  gone! 
Edward  with  fire  and  sword  follows  at  thy  heels. 

Edward  captures  the  barons,  Lancaster,  young  Mortimer, 
and  Warwick,  and  sends  them  to  execution.  Mortimer  escapes 
to  Flanders,  and  raising  a  force  returns  to  England  to  drive 
out  Edward's  new  favorites,  the  Spencers.  They  are  welcomed 
by  the  Queen :  — 

Queen.  Now,  lords,  our  loving  friends  and  countrymen. 
Welcome  to  England  all,  with  prosperous  winds; 
Our  kindest  friends  in  Belgia  have  we  left. 
To  cope  with  friends  at  home;  a  heavy  case 
When  force  to  force  is  knit,  and  sword  and  glaive 
In  civil  broils  make  kin  and  countrymen 
Slaughter  themselves  in  others,  and  their  sides 
With  their  own  weapons  gore!   But  what's  the  help? 
Misgoverned  kings  are  cause  of  all  this  wreck; 
And,  Edward,  thou  art  one  among  them  all. 
Whose  looseness  hath  betrayed  thy  land  to  spoil, 
Who  made  the  channel  overflow  with  blood 
Of  thine  own  people;  patron  shouldst  thou  be. 
But  thou  — 
Y.  Mor.  Nay,  madam,  if  you  be  a  warrior. 

Ye  must  not  grow  so  passionate  in  speeches. 
Lords,  sith  we  are  by  sufferance  of  heaven, 
Arrived,  and  armed  in  this  prince's  right. 
Here  for  our  country's  cause  swear  we  to  him 
All  homage,  fealty,  and  forwardness; 
And  for  the  open  wrongs  and  injuries 
Edward  hath  done  to  us,  his  queen  and  land, 
We  come  in  arms  to  wreak  it  with  the  sword; 

204 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

That  England's  queen  in  peace  may  repossess 

Her  dignities  and  honours;  and  withal 

We  may  remove  those  flatterers  from  the  king. 

In  the  battle  that  ensues  the  Queen's  friends  are  victorious. 
Mortimer,  aspiring  to  be  Lord  Protector,  plots  the  death  of 
Edward. 

Y.  Mor.  The  king  must  die,  or  Mortimer  goes  down. 
The  commons  now  begin  to  pity  him. 
Yet  he  that  is  the  cause  of  Edward's  death, 
Is  sure  to  pay  for  it  when  his  son's  of  age; 
And  therefore  will  I  do  it  cunningly. 
This  letter,  written  by  a  friend  of  ours, 
Contains  his  death,  yet  bids  them  save  his  life. 


The  prince  I  rule,  the  queen  do  I  command, 

And  with  a  lowly  conge  to  the  ground, 

The  proudest  lords  salute  me  as  I  pass: 

I  seal,  I  cancel,  I  do  what  I  will; 

Feared  am  I  more  than  loved  —  let  me  be  feared; 

And  when  I  frown,  make  all  the  court  look  pale. 

I  view  the  prince  with  Aristarchus'  eyes. 

Whose  looks  were  as  a  breeching  to  a  boy. 

They  thrust  upon  me  the  protectorship. 

And  sue  to  me  for  that  that  I  desire. 

While  at  the  council-table,  grave  enough. 

And  not  unlike  a  bashful  puritan, 

First  I  complain  of  imbecility. 

Saying  it  is  onus  quam  gravissimum; 

Till  being  interrupted  by  my  friends, 

Suscepi  that  provinciam  as  they  term  it; 

And  to  conclude,  I  am  Protector  now. 

Now  is  all  sure,  the  queen  and  Mortimer 

Shall  rule  the  realm,  the  king;  and  none  rule  us. 

Mine  enemies  will  I  plague,  my  friends  advance; 

And  what  I  list  command,  who  dare  control? 

Major  sum  qudm  cui  possit  fortuna  nocere. 

And  that  this  be  the  coronation-day. 

It  pleaseth  me,  and  Isabel  the  queen.     (Trumpets  within. 

The  trumpets  sound,  I  must  go  take  my  place. 

The  Prince  is  proclaimed  King,  while  his  father  is  in  the 
Tower  dying  of  poison. 

205 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Enter  the  Young  King,  Archbishop,  Champion,  Nobles,  Queen. 

Archbishop.  Long  live  King  Edward,  by  the  grace  of  God. 
King  of  England,  and  Lord  of  Ireland! 
Cham.  If  any  Christian,  Heathen,  Turk  or  Jew, 

Dare  but  affirm,  that  Edward  's  not  true  king. 
And  will  avouch  his  saying  with  the  sword, 
I  am  the  champion  that  will  combat  him. 
Y.  Mor.  None  comes,  sound  trumpets. 

King.  Champion,  here 's  to  thee.  {Gives  a  purse. 

Queen.  Lord  Mortimer,  now  take  him  to  your  charge. 

Mortimer  infatuated  with  power  orders  Kent  beheaded. 
The  young  king  pleads  in  vain  for  the  Hfe  of  his  uncle.  Hav- 
ing more  spirit  than  his  father  he  calls  his  lords  together  to 
punish  Mortimer.  The  Queen  in  fear  seeks  Mortimer. 

Queen.  Ah,  Mortimer,  the  king,  my  son,  hath  news 

His  father 's  dead,  and  we  have  murdered  him. 
Y.  Mor.  What  if  he  have?  the  king  is  yet  a  child. 

Queen.  Aye,  but  he  tears  his  hair,  and  wrings  his  hands, 
And  vows  to  be  revenged  upon  us  both. 
Into  the  council-chamber  he  is  gone. 
To  crave  the  aid  and  succour  of  his  peers. 
Ah  me!  see  where  he  comes,  and  they  with  him; 
Now,  Mortimer,  begins  our  tragedy. 

Enter  the  King,  with  the  Lords. 

First  Lord.  Fear  not,  my  lord,  know  that  you  are  king. 
King.  Villain! 
Y.  Mor.  How  now,  my  lord  ? 

King.  Think  not  that  I  am  frighted  with  thy  words! 
My  father's  murdered  through  thy  treachery; 
And  thou  shalt  die,  and  on  his  mournful  hearse 
Thy  hateful  and  accursed  head  shall  lie. 
To  witness  to  the  world,  that  by  thy  means 
His  kingly  body  was  too  soon  interred. 
Queen.  Weep  not,  sweet  son. 
King.  Forbid  not  me  to  weep,  he  was  my  father; 
And,  had  you  loved  him  half  so  well  as  I, 
You  could  not  bear  his  death  thus  patiently. 
But  you,  I  fear,  conspired  with  Mortimer. 
Lords.  Why  speak  you  not  unto  my  lord  the  king? 
Y,  Mor.  Because  I  think  scorn  to  be  accused. 

Who  is  the  man  dare  say  I  murdered  him? 

206 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

King.  Traitor!  in  me  my  loving  father  speaks, 

And  plainly  saith,  't  was  thou  that  murder'dst  him. 
Y.  Mor.  But  hath  your  grace  no  other  proof  than  this? 

King.  Yes,  if  this  be  the  hand  of  Mortimer. 
Y.  Mor.  False  Gurney  hath  betrayed  me  and  himself.     {Aside. 

The  young  king  convinced  of  the  participation  of  his  mother 
in  his  father's  death  sends  her  to  the  Tower. 

King.  Away  with  her,  her  words  enforce  these  tears. 
And  I  shall  pity  her  if  she  speaks  again. 

This  closes  the  drama: — 

Reenter  a  Lord,  with  the  Head  of  Mortimer. 

Lord.  My  lord,  here  is  the  head  of  Mortimer. 

King.  Go  fetch  my  father's  hearse,  where  it  shall  lie; 
And  bring  my  funeral  robes.  Accursed  head. 
Could  I  have  ruled  thee  then,  as  I  do  now. 
Thou  had'st  not  hatched  this  monstrous  treachery. 
Here  comes  the  hearse;  help  me  to  mourn,  my  lords. 
Sweet  father,  here  unto  thy  murdered  ghost 
I  offer  up  this  wicked  traitor's  head; 
And  let  these  tears,  distilling  from  mine  eyes. 
Be  witness  of  my  grief  and  innocency.  {Exeunt, 

Mr.  Robert  M.  Theobald  has  given  us  a  most  interesting 
study  of  "Edward  II."  He  says:  — 

The  internal  evidence  v^hich  I  have  to  produce  consists  of  such 
identity  of  expression  or  idea  as  is  distinctively  demonstrative  of 
identical  authorship,  if  it  can  be  shown  to  be  so  extended,  so 
subtle,  so  spontaneous,  as  to  exclude  the  alternative  explanation 
of  accidental  coincidence,  or  conscious  plagiarism,  or  appropria- 
tion.^ 

He  gives  us  a  hundred  and  thirteen  parallels  of  thought  and 
expression  in  "Edward  II,"  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  and 
Bacon.  Space  permits  a  quotation  of  but  two:  — 

A  lofty  cedar-tree,  fair  flourishing 

On  whose  top  branches  kingly  eagles  perch. 

Ed.  Ily  II,  ii. 

*  Robert  M.  Theobald,  M.A.,  Shakespeare  Studies  in  Baconian  Lights  p.  430. 
London,  1901. 

207 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Thus  yields  the  Cedar  to  the  axe's  edge 
Whose  arms  gave  shelter  to  the  princely  eagle. 

Henry  FI,  v,  ii. 
The  wild  O'Neil  with  swarms  of  Irish  kernes, 
Lives  uncontroll'd  within  the  English  pale. 

Ed.  II,  II,  ii. 
The  wild  O'Neil,  my  lords,  is  up  in  arms. 
With  troops  of  Irish  kernes,  that  uncontroll'd 
Doth  plant  themselves  within  the  English  pale. 

Contention,  etc.,  iii,  i. 
later  altered  in  "Henry  VI"  to 

The  haughty  Dane  commands  the  narrow  seas. 

Henry  VI,  ii,  ii. 

Mr.  Theobald  also  calls  attention  to  a  large  number  of 
words,  now  quite  common,  to  show  the  closeness  of  verbal 
expression  between  "Edward  II"  and  the  author  of  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works. 

Edward  III  was  printed  in  quarto  in  1596  anonymously, 
as  the  early  "Shakespeare"  quartos  were,  and  was  regarded 
as  being  the  work  of  the  same  author  by  Collier.  Capell  in  1760 
republished  it  as  "A  Play  thought  to  be  writ  by  Shakespeare," 
and  that  when  it  appeared  "there  was  no  known  writer  equal 
to  such  a  play."^  Ulrici  accounts  for  its  neglect,  and  its  omis- 
sion from  the  Folio,  by  the  fact  that  it  contains  reflections 
upon  the  Scots,  which  made  it  popular  in  Elizabeth's  time  but 
would  have  given  offense  to  James,  and  therefore  its  paternity 
was  not  recognized  by  its  author  in  his  reign.  He  concludes 
that  it  is  "a  complete  and  beautiful  composition,  which  is 
throughout  worthy  of  the  great  poet,"  having  already  given 
his  opinion  "  that  the  piece  probably  belongs  to  Shakespeare's 
earlier  labours."  Collier  declares  it  to  be  undoubtedly  Shake- 
speare's.2  Says  Phillipps:  — 

Produced  in  or  before  1595  there  are  occasional  passages  which, 
by  most  judgments,  will    be  accepted  as  having  been  written 

*  Edward  Capell,  Prolusions  or  Select  Pieces  of  Ancient  Poetry.  London,  1760. 
2  J.  Payne  Collier,  History  of  English  Dramatic  Poetry,  vol.  in,  p.  311. 

208 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

either  by  Shakespeare,  or  by  an  exceedingly  dexterous  and  suc- 
cessful imitator  of  one  of  his  then  favorite  styles  of  composition. 
For  who  but  one  or  the  other  could  have  endowed  a  kind  and 
gentle  lady  with  the  ability  of  replying  to  the  impertinent  ad- 
dresses of  a  foolish  sovereign  in  words  such  as  these. 

And  he  quotes  the  remarkable  passage  which  we  shall  later 
reproduce,  beginning  with  the  line,  "As  easy  may  my  intel- 
lectual soul,"  etc.  Referring  to  Capell's  "Exact  and  Perfect 
Catalogue  of  all  Playes  that  are  Printed,"  he  calls  attention  to 
the  fact  that  "not  only  Edward  the  Third  but  also  Edward 
the  Second  and  Edward  the  Fourth,  are  ascribed  to  the  great 
dramatist."^  Furnivall  calls  those  who  ascribe  the  play  to  the 
author  of  the  Folio  collection,  "A  few  wild  untrustworthy 
folk,"  abusing  those  who  differ  with  him  as  usual. 

In  the  first  scene  of  the  drama  we  have  the  Count  of  Artois 
presenting  to  Edward  his  claim  to  the  French  crown.  Follow- 
ing upon  this  the  Duke  of  Lorraine  comes  upon  the  scene  with 
the  insulting  summons  that  Edward  shall  render  homage  to 
the  King  of  France  for  the  dukedom  of  Guyenne.  To  this 
Edward  responds:  — 

Edw.  See,  how  occasion  laughs  me  in  the  face! 
No  sooner  minded  to  prepare  for  France, 
But,  straight,  I  am  invited;  nay,  with  threats, 
Upon  a  penalty,  enjoin'd  to  come: 
'T  were  but  a  foolish  part,  to  say  him  nay,  — 
Lorrain,  return  this  answer  to  thy  lord: 
I  mean  to  visit  him,  as  he  requests; 
But  how?  not  servilely  dispos'd  to  bend; 
But  like  a  conqueror,  to  make  him  bow: 
His  lame  unpolish'd  shifts  are  come  to  light; 
And  truth  hath  puU'd  the  visard  from  his  face; 
That  set  a  gloss  upon  his  arrogance. 
Dare  he  command  a  fealty  in  me? 
Tell  him,  the  crown,  that  he  usurps,  is  mine; 
And  where  he  sets  his  foot,  he  ought  to  kneel; 
'T  is  not  a  petty  dukedom  that  I  claim, 
But  all  the  whole  dominions  of  the  realm; 

^  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  125;  vol.  11,  p.  345. 
209 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Which  if  with  grudging  he  refuse  to  yield, 
I  '11  take  away  those  borrow'd  plumes  of  his, 
And  send  him  naked  to  the  wilderness. 

Lorraine  departs  after  an  angry  encounter  with  Artois  and 
Edward  turns  to  his  friends :  — 

Edw.  Now,  lords,  our  fleeting  bark  is  under  sail: 
Our  gage  is  thrown;  and  war  is  soon  begun. 
But  not  so  quickly  brought  unto  an  end.  — 

Troubles  follow  on  the  heels  of  one  another,  and,  at  this 
juncture,  enter  Sir  William  Mountague:  — 

Edw.  But  wherefore  comes  Sir  William  Mountague? 

How  stands  the  league  between  the  Scot  and  us? 
Moun.  Crack'd  and  dissever'd,  my  renowned  lord, 

The  treacherous  king  no  sooner  was  inform'd 
Of  your  withdrawing  of  our  army  back. 
But  straight,  forgetting  of  his  former  oath, 
He  made  invasion  on  the  bordering  towns. 

The  next  scene  opens  on  the  walls  of  Roxburgh  Castle  which 
has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Scots. 

The  Countess  of  Salisbury  appears  looking  for  succor  from 
the  English  king. 

Count.  Alas,  how  much  in  vain  my  poor  eyes  gaze 
For  succour  that  my  sovereign  should  send ! 

As  David,  the  Scotch  King,  with  his  followers,  enters,  she 
withdraws  with  the  words :  — 

I  must  withdraw;  the  everlasting  foe 
Comes  to  the  wall:  I'll  closely  step  aside. 

While  the  Scottish  King  is  on  the  walls,  a  messenger  enters 
hastily  with  news  of  the  coming  of  Edward :  — 

Mess.  My  liege,  as  we  were  pricking  on  the  hills, 
To  fetch  in  booty,  marching  hitherward 
We  might  descry  a  mighty  host  of  men: 
The  sun,  reflecting  on  the  armour,  showM 
A  field  of  plate,  a  wood  of  pikes  advanced. 
Dav.  Dislodge,  dislodge,  it  is  the  King  of  England, 

2IO 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Another  messenger  enters  crying,  "We  are  all  surpris'd." 
The  Scots  fly,  and  Edward  enters  with  his  attendants,  and  is 
welcomed  by  the  Countess :  — 

Count.  In  duty  lower  than  the  ground  I  kneel, 

And  for  my  dull  knees  bow  my  feeling  heart, 
To  witness  my  obedience  to  your  highness: 
With  many  millions  of  a  subject's  thanks 
For  this  your  royal  presence,  whose  approach 
Hath  driven  war  and  danger  from  my  gate. 

Edward  is  infatuated  with  the  beauty  of  the  Countess  of 
Salisbury:  — 

Edw.  She  is  grown  more  fairer  far  since  I  came  hither: 

Her  voice  more  silver  every  word  than  other. 

Her  wit  more  fluent:  what  a  strange  discourse 

Unfolded  she,  of  David,  and  his  Scots  .^ 
"Even  thus,"  quoth  she,  —  "he  spake,"  —  and  then  spoke 
broad, 

With  epithets  and  accents  of  the  Scots; 

But  somewhat  better  than  the  Scot  could  speak: 
"And  thus,"  quoth  she,  —  and  answered  then  herself; 

For  who  could  speak  like  her?  but  she  herself 

Breathes  from  the  wall  an  angel's  note  from  heaven 

Of  sweet  defiance  to  her  barbarous  foes. 

When  she  would  talk  of  peace,  methinks,  her  tongue 

Commanded  war  to  prison;  when  of  war 

It  waken'd  Csesar  from  his  Roman  grave, 

To  hear  war  beautified  by  her  discourse. 

Wisdom  is  foolishness,  but  in  her  tongue; 

Beauty  a  slander,  but  in  her  fair  face; 

There  is  no  summer,  but  in  her  cheerful  looks; 

Nor  frosty  winter,  but  in  her  disdain. 

Hast  thou  pen,  ink,  and  paper  ready,  Lodowick.? 
Lod.  Ready,  my  liege. 
Edw.  Then,  in  the  summer  arbour  sit  by  me. 

Make  it  our  council-house,  or  cabinet; 

Since  green  our  thoughts,  green  be  the  conventicle. 

Where  we  will  ease  us  by  disburdening  them 

Now,  Lodowick,  invocate  some  golden  muse, 

To  bring  thee  hither  an  enchanted  pen. 

While  Lodowick  is  writing  for  the  King  a  love  letter  to  the 
Countess,  she  enters :  — 

211 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Count.  Pardon  my  boldness,  my  thrice-gracious  lord; 
Let  my  intrusion  here  be  call'd  my  duty, 
That  comes  to  see  my  sovereign  how  he  fares. 

The  King  dismisses  Lodowick,  and  declares  to  the  Countess 
that  since  coming  to  the  castle  he  has  been  wronged,  and  is 
unhappy.  The  gentle  Countess  promises  to  do  all  in  her  power 
to  render  his  visit  a  happy  one.  Taking  advantage  of  this  he 
more  plainly  declares  his  passion:  — 

Edzv.  Thou  hear'st  me  say,  that  I  do  dote  on  thee. 

Count.  If  on  my  beauty,  take  it  if  thou  canst; 

Though  little,  I  do  prize  it  ten  times  less: 
If  on  my  virtue,  take  it  if  thou  canst: 
For  virtue's  store  by  giving  doth  augment; 
Be  it  on  what  it  will,  that  I  can  give, 
And  thou  canst  take  away,  inherit  it. 
Edzv.  It  is  thy  beauty  that  I  would  enjoy. 

Count.  O,  were  it  painted,  I  would  wipe  it  off. 
And  dispossess  myself,  to  give  it  thee. 
But,  sovereign,  it  is  solder'd  to  my  life; 
Take  one,  and  both;  for,  like  an  humble  shadow, 
It  haunts  the  sunshine  of  my  summer's  life. 
Edzv.  But  thou  may'st  lend  it  me,  to  sport  withal. 

Count.  As  easy  may  my  intellectual  soul 

Be  lent  away,  and  yet  my  body  live. 
As  lend  my  body,  palace  to  my  soul. 
Away  from  her,  and  yet  retain  my  soul, 
My  body  is  her  bower,  her  court,  her  abbey, 
And  she  an  angel,  pure,  divine,  unspotted: 
If  I  should  lend  her  house,  my  lord,  to  thee, 
I  kill  my  poor  soul,  and  my  poor  soul  me. 
Edzv.  Didst  thou  not  swear,  to  give  me  what  I  would  ^ 

Count.  I  did,  my  liege;  so,  what  you  would,  I  could. 
Edzv.  I  wish  no  more  of  thee,  than  thou  may'st  give; 
Nor  beg  I  do  not,  but  I  rather  buy. 
That  is,  thy  love;  and,  for  that  love  of  thine. 
In  rich  exchange,  I  tender  to  thee  mine. 

Count.  But  that  your  lips  were  sacred,  O  my  lord, 
You  would  profane  the  holy  name  of  love: 
That  love,  you  offer  me,  you  cannot  give; 
For  Csesar  owes  that  tribute  to  his  queen: 
That  love,  you  beg  of  me,  I  cannot  give; 
For  Sarah  owes  that  duty  to  her  lord. 
He,  that  doth  clip,  or  counterfeit,  your  stamp, 

212 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Shall  die,  my  lord;  and  will  your  sacred  self 

Commit  high  treason  against  the  King  of  heaven, 

To  stamp  his  image  in  forbidden  metal, 

Forgetting  your  allegiance,  and  your  oath? 

In  violating  marriage'  sacred  law, 

You  break  a  greater  honour  than  yourself: 

To  be  a  King,  is  of  a  younger  house, 

Than  to  be  married;  your  progenitor, 

Sole-reigning  Adam  on  the  universe. 

By  God  was  honoured  for  a  married  man. 

But  not  by  him  anointed  for  a  king. 

It  is  a  penalty,  to  break  your  statutes, 

Though  not  enacted  by  your  highness'  hand: 

How  much  more,  to  infringe  the  holy  act 

Made  by  the  mouth  of  God,  seal'd  with  his  hand? 

I  know,  my  sovereign  —  in  my  husband's  love, 

Who  now  doth  loyal  service  in  his  wars  — 

Doth  but  to  try  the  wife  of  Salisbury, 

Whether  she  will  hear  a  wanton's  tale,  or  no; 

Lest  being  therein  guilty  by  my  stay. 

From  that,  not  from  my  liege,  I  turn  away. 

The  King,  knowing  the  moral  weakness  of  Warwick,  her 
father,  appeals  to  him  to  use  his  influence  with  his  daughter, 
and  he  consents.  The  Countess,  anxious  to  escape  the  atten- 
tion of  her  sovereign,  and  at  the  same  time  exercise  her  hos- 
pitality towards  him,  seeks  her  father,  who  is  condemning 
himself  for  his  weakness. 

War.  O  doting  king!  0  detestable  office! 

Well  may  I  tempt  myself  to  wrong  myself. 
When  he  hath  sworn  me  by  the  name  of  God 
To  break  a  vow  made  by  the  name  of  God. 

Enter  Countess. 

See,  where  she  comes :  was  never  father,  had. 
Against  his  child,  an  embassage  so  bad. 
Count.  My  lord  and  father,  I  have  sought  for  you; 
My  mother  and  the  peers  importune  you, 
To  keep  in  presence  of  his  majesty. 
And  do  your  best  to  make  his  highness  merry. 
War.  How  shall  I  enter  on  this  graceless  errand  ? 

I  must  not  call  her  child:  for  where  's  the  father 
That  will,  in  such  a  suit,  seduce  his  child  ? 

213 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 
He  then  proceeds  to  disclose  to  her  the  King's  suit :  — 

Count.  Unnatural  besiege!  Woe  me  unhappy, 
To  have  escap'd  the  danger  of  my  foes, 
And  to  be  ten  times  worse  inwir'd  by  friends! 
Hath  he  no  means  to  stain  my  honest  blood. 
But  to  corrupt  the  author  of  my  blood. 
To  be  his  scandalous  and  vile  solicitor? 
fFar.  Why,  now  thou  speak'st  as  I  would  have  thee  speak; 
And  mark  how  I  unsay  my  words  again. 

An  evil  deed,  done  by  authority, 
Is  sin  and  subornation;  deck  an  ape 
In  tissue,  and  the  beauty  of  the  robe 
Adds  but  the  greater  scorn  unto  the  beast, 
A  spacious  field  of  reasons  could  I  urge. 
Between  his  glory,  daughter,  and  thy  shame: 
That  poison  shows  worst  in  a  golden  cup; 
Dark  night  seems  darker  by  the  lightning  flash; 
Lilies,  that  fester,  smell  far  worse  than  weeds; 
And  every  glory  that  inclines  to  sin. 
The  same  is  treble  by  the  opposite. 
So  leave  I,  with  my  blessing  in  thy  bosom; 
Which  then  convert  to  a  most  heavy  curse. 
When  thou  convert'st  from  honour's  golden  name 
To  the  black  faction  of  bed-blotting  shame! 
Count.  I'll  follow  thee;  and,  when  my  mind  turns  so. 
My  body  sink  my  soul  in  endless  woe! 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  line  uttered  by  Warwick, 
"Lilies,  that  fester,  smell  far  worse  than  weeds,"  occurs  in 
Sonnet  xciv. 

In  Scene  ii  the  lovesick  King  is  brooding  over  his  passion 
when  Lodowick  enters  and  is  anxiously  asked  by  him :  — 

Edw.  What  says  the  more  than  Cleopatra's  match 

To  Caesar  now? 
Lod.  That  yet,  my  liege,  ere  night 

She  will  resolve  your  majesty.  {Drums  within. 

Lodowick  who  has  retired  to  ascertain  the  cause,  re- 
enters :  — 

Lod.  My  liege,  the  drum,  that  struck  the  lusty  march, 

Stands  with  Prince  Edward,  your  thrice-valiant  son. 

214 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Now  occurs  a  most  remarkable  scene.  The  King  looking 
upon  his  son,  who  resembles  his  mother,  as  he  enters,  has  a 
sudden  pang  of  contrition,  and  thus  muses  inwardly :  — 

Edw.  I  see  the  boy.   O,  how  his  mother's  face, 

Moulded  in  his,  corrects  my  stray'd  desire. 

And  rates  my  heart,  and  chides  my  thievish  eye: 

Who  being  rich  enough  in  seeing  her. 

Yet  seeks  elsewhere:  and  basest  theft  is  that. 

Which  cannot  cloke  itself  on  poverty.  — 

Now  boy,  what  news  ? 
Prince.  I  have  assembled,  my  dear  lord  and  father. 

The  choicest  buds  of  all  our  English  blood, 

For  our  affairs  to  France;  and  here  we  come, 

To  take  direction  from  your  majesty. 
Ediv.  Still  do  I  see  in  him  delineate 

His  mother's  visage;  those  his  eyes  are  hers, 

Who,  looking  wistly  on  me,  make  me  blush; 

For  faults  against  themselves  give  evidence: 

Lust  is  a  fire;  and  men,  like  lanthorns,  show 

Light  lust  within  themselves,  even  through  themselves. 

Away,  loose  silks  of  wavering  vanity! 

Shall  the  large  limit  of  fair  Britany 

By  me  be  overthrown.''  and  shall  I  not 

Master  this  little  mansion  of  myself? 

Give  me  an  armour  of  eternal  steel; 

I  go  to  conquer  kings;  and  shall  I  then 

Subdue  myself,  and  be  my  enemy's  friend? 

It  must  not  be.  —  Come,  boy,  forward,  advance! 

Let's  with  our  colours  beat  the  air  of  France. 
Lod.  My  liege,  the  countess,  with  a  smiling  cheer 

Desires  access  unto  your  majesty. 
Edw.  Why,  there  it  goes!  that  very  smile  of  hers 

Hath  ransom'd  captive  France;  and  set  the  king. 

The  Dauphin,  and  the  peers,  at  liberty,  — 

Go,  leave  me,  Ned,  and  revel  with  thy  friends.      {Exit  prince. 

Thy  mother  is  but  black;  and  thou,  like  her. 

Dost  put  into  my  mind  how  foul  she  is,  — 

Go,  fetch  the  countess  hither  in  thy  hand. 

And  let  her  chase  away  those  winter  clouds; 

For  she  gives  beauty  both  to  heaven  and  earth. 

{Exit  Lodowick. 

The  sin  is  more,  to  hack  and  hew  poor  men. 

Than  to  embrace,  in  an  unlawful  bed, 

The  register  of  all  varieties 

Since  leathern  Adam  'till  this  youngest  hour. 

215 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Reenter  Lodowick  with  the  Countess. 

Go,  Lodowick,  put  thy  hand  into  my  purse, 

Play,  spend,  give,  riot,  waste;  do  what  thou  wilt, 

So  thou  wilt  hence  a  while,  and  leave  me  here. 

{Exit  Lodowick. 

Now,  my  soul's  playfellow!  and  art  thou  come, 

To  speak  the  more  than  heavenly  word,  of  yea, 

To  my  subjection  in  thy  beauteous  love? 
Count.  My  father  on  his  blessing  hath  commanded  — 

Edw.  That  thou  shalt  yield  to  me. 
Count.  Ay,  dear  my  liege,  your  due. 
Edw.  And  that,  my  dearest  love,  can  be  no  less 

Than  right  for  right,  and  tender  love  for  love. 
Count.  Than  wrong  for  wrong,  and  endless  hate  for  hate.  — 

But,  —  sith  I  see  your  majesty  so  bent, 

That  my  unwillingness,  my  husband's  love, 

Your  high  estate,  nor  no  respect  respected 

Can  be  my  help,  but  that  your  mightiness 

Will  overbear  and  awe  these  dear  regards,  — 

I  bind  my  discontent  to  my  content. 

And,  what  I  would  not,  I'll  compel  I  will; 

Provided,  that  yourself  remove  those  lets, 

That  stand  between  your  highness'  love  and  mine. 
Edw.  Name  them,  fair  countess,  and,  by  Heaven,  I  will. 
Count.  It  is  their  lives,  that  stand  between  our  love, 

That  I  would  have  chok'd  up,  my  sovereign. 
Edw.  Whose  lives,  my  lady? 
Count.  My  thrice-loving  liege, 

Your  queen,  and  Salisbury  my  wadded  husband: 

Who  living  have  that  title  in  our  love. 

That  we  cannot  bestow  but  by  their  death. 
Edw.  Thy  opposition  is  beyond  our  law. 
Count.  And  so  is  your  desire;  if  the  law 

Can  hinder  you  to  execute  the  one. 

Let  it  forbid  you  to  attempt  the  other; 

I  cannot  think  you  love  me  as  you  say, 

Unless  you  do  make  good  what  you  have  sworn. 
Edw.  No  more;  thy  husband  and  the  queen  shall  die. 

Fairer  thou  art  by  far  than  Hero  was; 

Beardless  Leander  not  so  strong  as  I: 

He  swum  an  easy  current  for  his  love; 

But  I  will  through  a  helly  spout  of  blood, 

To  arrive  at  Sestos  where  my  Hero  lies. 
Count.  Nay,  you'll  do  more;  you'll  make  the  river  too, 

With  their  heart-bloods  that  keep  our  love  asunder, 

Of  which,  my  husband,  and  your  wife,  are  twain. 

2l6 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Edw.  Thy  beauty  makes  them  guilty  of  their  death, 

And  gives  in  evidence,  that  they  shall  die; 

Upon  which  verdict,  I,  their  judge,  condemn  them. 
Count.  O  perjur'd  beauty!  more  corrupted  judge; 

When,  to  the  great  star-chamber  o'er  our  heads, 

The  universal  sessions  calls  to  count 

This  packing  evil,  we  both  shall  tremble  for  it. 
Edw.  What  says  my  fair  love.^  is  she  resolute? 
Count.  Resolv'd  to  be  dissolved;  and,  therefore,  this,  — 

Keep  but  thy  word,  great  king,  and  I  am  thine. 

Stand  where  thou  dost,  I  '11  part  a  little  from  thee. 

And  see  how  I  will  yield  me  to  thy  hands. 

{Turning  suddenly  upon  him,  and  showing  two  daggers. 

Here  by  my  side  do  hang  my  wedding  knives; 

Take  thou  the  one,  and  with  it  kill  thy  queen, 

And  learn  by  me  to  find  her  where  she  lies; 

And  with  this  other  I'll  dispatch  my  love. 

Which  now  lies  fast  asleep  within  my  heart; 

When  they  are  gone,  then  I  '11  consent  to  love. 

Stir  not,  lascivious  king,  to  hinder  me; 

My  resolution  is  more  nimbler  far. 

Than  thy  prevention  can  be  in  my  rescue. 

And,  if  thou  stir,  I  strike;  therefore  stand  still, 

And  hear  the  choice  that  I  will  put  thee  to: 

Either  swear  to  leave  thy  most  unholy  suit. 

And  never  henceforth  to  solicit  me; 

Or  else,  by  Heaven  {kneeling)  this  sharp-pointed  knife 

Shall  stain  thy  earth  with  that  which  thou  wouldst  stain, 

My  poor  chaste  blood.   Swear,  Edward,  swear. 

Or  I  will  strike,  and  die,  before  thee  here. 

Utterly  overcome  by  the  impeccable  virtue  of  the  Countess, 
Edward's  nobler  nature  reawakens,  and  he  exclaims :  — 

Edw.  Even  by  that  Power  I  swear,  that  gives  me  now 
The  power  to  be  ashamed  of  myself, 
I  never  mean  to  part  my  lips  again 
In  any  word  that  tends  to  such  a  suit. 
Arise,  true  English  lady:  whom  our  isle 
May  better  boast  of,  than  e'er  Roman  might 
Of  her,  whose  ransack'd  treasury  hath  task'd 
The  vain  endeavour  of  so  many  pens; 
Arise:  and  be  my  fault  thy  honour's  fame, 
Which  after-ages  shall  enrich  thee  with. 
I  am  awaked  from  this  idle  dream:  — 

217 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Warwick,  my  son,  Derby,  Artois,  and  Audley, 
Brave  warriors  all,  where  are  you  all  this  while? 

Enter  Prince  and  Lords. 
Warwick,  I  make  thee  warden  of  the  north:  — 
You,  Prince  of  Wales,  and  Audley,  straight  to  sea; 
Scour  to  Newhaven;  some,  there  stay  for  me:  — 
Myself,  Artois,  and  Derby,  will  through  Flanders, 
To  greet  our  friends  there,  and  to  crave  their  aid: 
This  night  will  scarce  suffice  me,  to  discover 
My  folly's  siege  against  a  faithful  lover; 
For,  ere  the  sun  shall  gild  the  eastern  sky. 
We'll  wake  him  with  our  martial  harmony.  {Exeunt. 

The  rest  of  the  play  is  taken  up  with  the  campaign  in  France. 

Before  the  battle  of  Cr6cy  the  King  arms  his  son:  — 

And,  Ned,  because  this  battle  is  the  first 
That  ever  yet  thou  fought'st  in  pitched  field, 
As  ancient  custom  is  of  martialists. 
To  dub  thee  with  the  type  of  chivalry. 
In  solemn  manner  we  will  give  thee  arms. 

We  will  quote,  in  closing,  from  the  last  act  which  ends  with 

the  battle  of  Poitiers:  — 

Edw.  Welcome,  Lord  Salisbury;  what  news  from  Bretagne.^ 
Sal.  This,  mighty  king:  the  country  we  have  won; 

And  John  de  Montfort,  regent  of  that  place. 

Presents  your  highness  with  this  coronet. 

Protesting  true  allegiance  to  your  grace. 
Edw.  We  thank  thee  for  thy  service,  valiant  earl; 

Challenge  our  favour,  for  we  owe  it  thee. 
Sal.  But  now,  my  lord,  as  this  is  joyful  news, 

So  must  my  voice  be  tragical  again. 

And  I  must  sing  of  doleful  accidents. 
Edw.  What,  have  our  men  the  overthrow  at  Poitiers 

Or  is  my  son  beset  with  too  much  odds .? 
Sal.  He  was,  my  lord;  and  as  my  worthless  self. 

With  forty  other  serviceable  knights. 

Under  safe-conduct  of  the  Dauphin's  seal 

Did  travel  that  way,  finding  him  distress'd, 

A  troop  of  lances  met  us  on  the  way, 

Surpris'd,  and  brought  us  prisoners  to  the  king; 

Who,  proud  of  this,  and  eager  of  revenge, 

Commanded  straight  to  cut  off  all  our  heads: 

And  surely  we  had  died,  but  that  the  duke, 
2l8 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

More  full  of  honour  than  his  angry  sire, 
Procur'd  our  quick  deliverance  from  thence: 
But,  ere  we  went,  "Salute  your  king,"  quoth  he, 
"Bid  him  provide  a  funeral  for  his  son. 
To-day  our  sword  shall  cut  his  thread  of  life; 
And,  sooner  than  he  thinks,  we'll  be  with  him, 
To  quittance  those  displeasures  he  hath  done": 
This  said,  we  pass'd,  not  daring  to  reply; 
Our  hearts  were  dead,  our  looks  diffus'd  and  wan. 
Wand'ring,  at  last  we  climb'd  unto  a  hill; 
From  whence,  although  our  grief  were  much  before, 
Yet  now  to  see  the  occasion  with  our  eyes 
Did  thrice  so  much  increase  our  heaviness: 
For  there,  my  lord,  O,  there  we  did  descry 
Down  in  a  valley  how  both  armies  lay. 
The  French  had  cast  their  trenches  like  a  ring; 
And  every  barricado's  open  front 
Was  thick  emboss'd  with  brazen  ordinance: 
Here  stood  a  battle  of  ten  thousand  horse; 
There  twice  as  many  pikes,  in  quadrantwise; 
Here  cross-bows,  arm'd  with  deadly-wounding  darts: 
And  in  the  midst,  like  to  a  slender  point 
Within  the  compass  of  the  horizon,  — 
As 't  were  a  rising  bubble  in  the  sea, 
A  hazel-wand  amidst  a  wood  of  pines,  — 
Or  as  a  bear  fast  chain'd  unto  a  stake. 
Stood  famous  Edward,  still  expecting  when 
Those  dogs  of  France  would  fasten  on  his  flesh. 
Anon,  the  death-procuring  knell  begins: 
Off  go  the  cannons,  that,  with  trembling  noise, 
Did  shake  the  very  mountain  where  we  stood; 
Then  sound  the  trumpets'  clangours  in  the  air, 
The  battles  join:  and,  when  we  could  no  more 
Discern  the  difference  'twixt  the  friend  and  foe, 
(So  intricate  the  dark  confusion  was) 
Away  we  turn'd  our  wat'ry  eyes,  with  sighs 
As  black  as  powder  fuming  into  smoke. 
And  thus,  I  fear,  unhappy  have  I  told 
The  most  untimely  tale  of  Edward's  fall. 
Queen.       Ah  me!  is  this  my  welcome  into  France? 
Is  this  the  comfort,  that  I  look'd  to  have. 
When  I  should  meet  with  my  beloved  son.^ 
,  Sweet  Ned,  I  would,  thy  mother  in  the  sea 
Had  been  prevented  of  this  mortal  grief! 
Edw,       Content  thee,  Philippa:  'tis  not  tears  will  serve 
To  call  him  back,  if  he  be  taken  hence: 
219 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Comfort  thyself,  as  I  do,  gentle  queen, 
With  hope  of  sharp,  unheard-of,  dire  revenge.  — 
He  bids  me  to  provide  his  funeral; 
And  so  I  will:  but  all  the  peers  in  France 
Shall  mourners  be,  and  weep  out  bloody  tears, 
Until  their  empty  veins  be  dry  and  sere: 
The  pillars  of  his  hearse  shall  be  their  bones: 
The  mould  that  covers  him,  their  cities'  ashes; 
His  knell,  the  groaning  cries  of  dying  men; 
And,  in  the  stead  of  tapers  on  his  tomb. 
An  hundred  fifty  towers  shall  burning  blaze, 
While  we  bewail  our  valiant  son's  decease. 

But  grief  is  soon  turned  to  joy.  Although  so  outnumbered 
by  his  foes,  the  vahant  Prince  is  victorious,  and  the  play  thus 
ends :  — 

Flourish  of  trumpets  within.  Enter  a  Herald. 
Her.       Rejoice,  my  lord;  ascend  the  imperial  throne! 

The  mighty  and  redoubted  Prince  of  Wales, 

Great  servitor  to  bloody  Mars  in  arms, 

The  Frenchman's  terror,  and  his  country's  fame, 

Triumphant  rideth  like  a  Roman  peer; 

And,  lowly  at  his  stirrup,  comes  afoot 

King  John  of  France,  together  with  his  son, 

In  captive  bonds;  whose  diadem  he  brings, 

To  crown  thee  with,  and  to  proclaim  thee  king. 
Edw.  Away  with  mourning,  Philippa,  wipe  thine  eyes;  — 

Sound,  trumpets,  welcome  in  Plantagenet! 

A  loud  flourish.    Enter  Prince^  Audley,  Artois,  with  King  John^  and 

Philip. 
As  things,  long  lost,  when  they  are  found  again. 
So  doth  my  son  rejoice  his  father's  heart. 
For  whom,  even  now,  my  soul  was  much  perplex'd! 

{Running  to  the  Prince^  and  embracing  him. 
Queen.      Be  this  a  token  to  express  my  joy.  {Kissing  him. 

For  inward  passions  will  not  let  me  speak. 
Prince.      My  gracious  father,  here  receive  the  gift. 

{Presenting  him  with  King  JohrCs  crown. 
This  wreath  of  conquest,  and  reward  of  war, 
Got  with  as  mickle  peril  of  our  lives. 
As  e'er  was  thing  of  price  before  this  day; 
Install  your  highness  in  your  proper  right: 
And,  herewithal,  I  render  to  your  hands 
These  prisoners,  chief  occasion  of  our  strife. 

220 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

Edzv,       So,  John  of  France,  I  see,  you  keep  your  word. 
You  promis'd  to  be  sooner  with  ourself 
Than  we  did  think  for,  and  't  is  so  indeed: 
But,  had  you  done  at  first  as  now  you  do. 
How  many  civil  towns  had  stood  untouched. 
That  now  are  turn'd  to  ragged  heaps  of  stones? 
How  many  people's  lives  might  you  have  sav'd, 
That  are  untimely  sunk  into  their  graves? 

John.       Edward,  recount  not  things  irrevocable; 

Tell  me  what  ransom  thou  requir'st  to  have? 

Edw.       Thy  ransom,  John,  hereafter  shall  be  known; 
But  first  to  England  thou  must  cross  the  seas. 
To  see  what  entertainment  it  affords; 
Howe'er  it  falls,  it  cannot  be  so  bad 
As  ours  hath  been  since  we  arriv'd  in  France. 

John.       Accursed  man!  of  this  I  was  foretold. 

But  did  misconster  what  the  prophet  told. 
Prince.       Now,  father,  this  petition  Edward  makes,  — 

To  Thee,  {kneels)  whose  grace  hath  been  his  strongest  shield 

That,  as  Thy  pleasure  chose  me  for  the  man 

To  be  the  instrument  to  show  Thy  power. 

So  Thou  wilt  grant,  that  many  princes  more, 

Bred  and  brought  up  within  that  little  isle. 

May  still  be  famous  for  like  victories!  — 

And,  for  my  part,  the  bloody  scars  I  bear. 

The  weary  nights  that  I  have  watch'd  in  field, 

The  dangerous  conflicts  I  have  often  had, 

The  fearful  menaces  were  proffer'd  me. 

The  heat,  and  cold,  and  what  else  might  displease 

I  wish  were  now  redoubled  twenty-fold; 

So  that  hereafter  ages,  when  they  read 

The  painful  traffic  of  my  tender  youth, 

Might  thereby  be  inflamed  with  such  resolve, 

As  not  the  territories  of  France  alone, 

But  likewise  Spain,  Turkey,  and  what  countries  else 

That  justly  would  provoke  fair  England's  ire, 

Might,  at  their  presence,  tremble  and  retire! 

Edw.       Here,  English  lords,  we  do  proclaim  a  rest. 
And  interceasing  of  our  painful  arms: 
Sheathe  up  your  swords,  refresh  your  weary  limbs. 
Peruse  your  spoils;  and,  after  we  have  breath'd 
A  day  or  two  within  this  haven  town, 
God  willing,  then  for  England,  we'll  be  shipped; 
Where,  in  a  happy  hour,  I  trust,  we  shall 
Arrive,  three  kings,  two  princes,  and  a  queen. 

{Flourish.  Exeunt  omnes, 
221 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

To  get  an  adequate  conception  of  the  greatness  of  this 
drama,  one  should  read  it  uninfluenced  by  those  critics  who 
realize,  as  Phillipps  did,  how  fatal  to  their  cause  it  is  to  cut 
loose  from  the  so-called  Canon  of  Heminge  and  Condell.  Had 
it  been  included  in  that  collection,  we  should  have  had  another 
volume  or  more  added  to  Furness's  "Monument  of  Scholar- 
ship," and  Phillipps  would  have  been  far  less  chary  in  praising 
it.  As  it  was,  he  was  obliged  to  treat  it  indifferently  in  order 
to  sustain  the  futile  theory  which  his  predecessors  had  im- 
posed upon  him.  To  question  the  infallibility  of  Heminge  and 
Condell,  he  believed  that  we  "should  be  launched  on  a  sea 
with  a  chart  in  which  are  unmarked  perilous  quicksands  of  in- 
tuitive opinions.  Especially  is  the  vessel  itself  in  danger  if  it 
touches  the  insidious  bank  raised  up  from  doubts." 

As  in  the  case  of  "Edward  H,"  so  with  that  of  "Edward 
HL"  Parallels  of  thought  and  expression  with  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works  and  those  of  Francis  Bacon  are  numerous, 
which  link  it  with  them  in  a  manner  which  to  an  unbiased  mind 
is  convincing  of  a  common  authorship.  Both  "Edward  H" 
and  "  Edward  HI "  exhibit  defects  similar  to  those  in  the  plays 
comprised  in  the  Canon;  defects  for  which  the  pla5rwrights 
who  had  a  hand  in  adapting  them  to  the  stage,  and  the  actors 
who  altered  words  and  lines,  or  omitted  them  in  acting,  were 
responsible.  It  was  this  that  justified  the  nominal  but  well- 
informed  editors  of  the  First  Folio  in  their  use  of  the  words 
"mutilated"  and  "deformed"  when  speaking  of  "surrepti- 
tious copies,"  which  they  professed  were  not  made  use  of  in 
the  work,  but  which,  in  a  number  of  instances  at  least,  cer- 
tainly were,  owing  most  likely  to  haste  and  oversight  while  it 
was  going  through  the  press. 

We  would  examine  several  other  dramas  once  known  as 
"Shakespeare"  plays,  but  have  thought  it  better  to  confine 
ourselves  to  the  seven  included  in  the  Third  Folio,  the  two  in 
the  Leopold  Shakespeare,  and  "Edward  11"  and  "Edward 
III,"  which  reveal  the  hand  of  the  master.   In  treating  this 

222 


A  STUDY  OF  OTHER  "SHAKESPEARE"  PLAYS 

branch  of  our  subject  we  have  had  in  mind  the  single  object  of 
presenting  to  the  reader  an  accurate  view  of  the  condition 
to-day  of  Shaksperian  criticism.  To  do  this  we  have  feh  it 
necessary  to  place  the  critics  on  the  witness  stand,  that  the 
reader  might  understand  the  conflicting  and  unreliable  char- 
acter of  their  testimony,  and  to  devote  more  time  than  we 
wished  to  the  "doubtful"  plays,  that  they  might  better  un- 
derstand the  scope  of  this  greatest  of  literary  problems. 


VI 

MYTHICAL   RELICS 
THE    PORTRAITS 

Let  us  devote  ourselves  to  a  critical  study  of  the  portraits 
of  the  Stratford  actor,  that  the  reader  may  be  able  to  form  an 
independent  judgment  respecting  them. 

THE    DROESHOUT   PORTRAIT 

The  first  is  the  most  important,  as  it  is  the  earliest,  being 
found  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  seven  years  after  the  death  of  the 
actor.  It  is  known  as  the  Droeshout  portrait,  and  has  been 
considered  by  his  biographers  as  authentic.  Portraits,  how- 
ever, of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  were  as  un- 
reliable as  royal  favors.  When  the  bewigged  and  bespectacled 
publisher  wanted  a  portrait  to  embellish  a  book  to  make  it 
more  salable,  he  applied  to  the  poor  engraver  who  was  usually 
plying  his  trade  in  an  attic,  and  procured  one.  If  a  portrait  of 
the  subject  had  been  painted,  and  a  copy  of  it  was  obtainable, 
well  and  good ;  but  painted  portraits  were  comparatively  few, 
even  of  the  great,  so  the  engraver  improvised  one  as  well  as 
circumstances  permitted. 

The  writer,  while  spending  a  year  in  the  British  Archives 
collecting  historical  material,  spent  some  of  his  spare  mo- 
ments gathering  portraits  of  prominent  men  of  the  Tudor  and 
Stuart  reigns,  and,  on  one  occasion,  was  referred  by  a  Mu- 
seum ofl[icial  to  an  expert  on  the  portraiture  of  these  reigns. 
He  was  an  aged  man,  and  had  a  large  collection  of  rare  por- 
traits. In  discussing  portraits  difficult  of  acquisition  he  proved 
interesting.  A  portrait  of  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  the  father 
of  American  colonization,  was  particularly  wanted.  All  his 
ancient  haunts  had  been  visited,  correspondence  opened  with 

224 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

remote  relatives,  and  the  unknown  portraits  at  Hampton 
Court,  some  of  them  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  Gorges 
family,  carefully  studied  without  result.  Telling  the  old 
gentleman  of  this  tedious  search,  he  remarked,  "Sir  Ferdi- 
nando's  portrait  was  never  painted,  but  I  can  furnish  you 
with  one  for  a  guinea." 

But  a  few  years  ago  the  writer  studied  the  portraits  of 
Jacques  Cartier,  and  made  up  his  mind  that  in  any  case  only 
one  had  an  element  of  authenticity.  At  the  time  he  was  col- 
lecting sixteenth-century  French  portraits,  and  called  on  a 
large  collector  to  look  over  his  treasures.  While  so  engaged 
the  question  was  asked  if  he  had  a  Cartier.  "A  very  fine  one," 
he  replied,  and  passed  it  out.  A  glance  only  was  needed,  and 
it  was  handed  back.  "Don't  you  like  it.?"  he  asked.  "Yes," 
was  replied,  "only  it  isn't  Cartier."  He  looked  somewhat 
surprised,  and  asked,  "Why?"  Fortunately  its  origin  being 
known,  he  was  told.  "Am  I  right .?"  was  asked,  and  the  reply 
grudgingly  made,  "Yes." 

The  writer  has  sometimes  wondered,  when  comparing 
portraits  of  past  greatness,  whether  they  at  all  resembled 
their  presumptive  subjects.  Engravers  were  wont  to  use  old 
plates,  altering  or  substituting  faces  as  they  thought  best. 
A  well-known  example  is  the  equestrian  portrait  of  Charles  I. 
After  Cromwell  assumed  rule  a  portrait  of  that  King  of  the 
Democracy  was  required,  and  a  fine  equestrian  engraving  was 
produced.  The  portraits  of  the  first  Charles  had  been  put 
out  of  sight,  and  it  was  some  time  before  it  was  discovered 
that  Cromwell's  head  had  been  substituted  for  that  of  his  de- 
capitated victim.  No  other  change  was  made  in  the  picture. 
With  a  subject  of  less  importance  a  few  alterations  in  lines 
would  have  served  the  purpose. 

Of  course  it  is  hardly  to  be  believed  that  the  Stratford 
actor's  portrait  was  ever  painted  during  his  life.  But  com- 
paratively few  of  England's  great  men  were  wise  enough  to 
bequeath  their  faces  to  posterity,  and  though  it  might  have 

225 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

been  possible  for  a  strolling  actor  to  have  his  portrait  painted, 
or  a  rude  sketch  of  his  face  made,  the  Stratford  actor,  as  we 
know  him,  was  too  careless,  and  especially  too  thrifty,  to  im- 
poverish himself  in  this  manner.  He  preferred  to  invest  his 
earnings  in  tithes,  loans  and  real  estate,  which  seemed  much 
wiser.  How  then  could  Droeshout  have  managed  to  pro- 
duce a  portrait  for  the  publishers  of  the  Folio  of  1623  ?  He 
was  then  a  young  man  not  quite  twenty-two,  and  but  fifteen 
when  the  man  whose  portrait  was  required  died.  The  portrait 
wanted  was  of  a  man  at  that  time  obscure,  a  play  actor  whose 
name  had  been  associated  with  plays  in  minor  roles,  and  his 
face  forgotten  except  by  a  few  persons.  What  could  the  en- 
graver do.f*  Why,  just  as  all  honest  engravers  then  did,  go 
to  some  one  who  had  known  the  man,  and  ask  for  a  descrip- 
tion of  him ;  whether  his  face  was  long  or  short,  full  or  thin ; 
nose  aquiline  or  bulbous ;  eyes  large  or  small,  near  or  far  apart, 
and  so  on.  With  such  particulars  a  face  could  be  made  to  pass 
muster  though  it  might  not  look  at  all  like  the  man.  This  is 
what  Droeshout  would  have  done  if  he  intended  making  the 
actor's  portrait. 

Martin  Droeshout,  says  Strutt,  was  one  of  the  indifferent  en- 
gravers of  the  last  century.  His  portraits  have  nothing  but  their 
scarcity  to  recommend  them.^ 

Steevens,  the  biographer  of  the  actor,  says: — 

The  plate  of  Droeshout  .  .  .  has  .  .  .  established  his  claim  to 
the  title  of  a  most  abominable  imitator  of  humanity.^ 

Boaden,  an  excellent  early  authority  on  Shaksperian  por- 
traiture, says  of  this  portrait :  — 

It  has  been  supposed  that  he  engraved  after  a  very  coarse, 
original,  if  indeed  he  did  not  work  from  personal  recollection, 

^  Joseph  Strutt,  A  Biographical  Dictionary  of  Engravers,  vol.  i,  p.  264. 
London, 1785. 

2  Samuel  Johnson  and  George  Steevens,  The  Plays  of  William  Shakespeare, 
p.  2. 

226 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

assisted  by  such  hints  as  might  be  given  by  those  who  desired 
this  embellishment  for  their  book.^ 

These  are  criticisms  none  too  caustic  for  any  fair  judge  of 
portraiture  to  endorse,  and  it  became  evident  to  the  dev- 
otees of  the  actor  that  a  portrait  more  in  accord  with  pubUc 
taste  must  be  found.  A  Shakspere  original  would  be  valuable, 
and  it  was  forthcoming.  This  was  followed  by  others,  and 
the  market  became  overstocked  with  portraits  resembling, 
in  some  degree,  of  course,  the  Droeshout  caricature.  These 
were  usually  painted  over  the  portraits  of  forgotten  worthies, 
or,  if  the  form  of  a  head  permitted,  it  was  made  to  serve  its 
purpose  by  a  few  skilful  changes  in  outline  and  expression. 

One  of  the  most  active  of  these  painters  of  spurious  por- 
traits of  the  actor  was,  says  Boaden,  "The  grandson  of  an 
artist  of  indisputable  excellence,"  to  whom  "misfortune  sug- 
gested this  sad  remedy  for  indigence."  ^  So  numerous  were 
these  spurious  portraits  that  Sidney  Lee,  whose  orthodoxy 
cannot  be  questioned,  informs  us  that 

It  would  be  futile  to  attempt  to  make  the  record  of  the  pretended 
portraits  complete.  Upwards  of  sixty  have  been  offered  for  sale 
to  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  since  its  foundation  in  1856, 
and  not  one  of  these  has  proved  to  possess  the  remotest  claim  to 
authenticity.  2 

This  is  certainly  discouraging.  But  it  has  seemed  necessary 
that  the  world  should  have  a  portrait  of  the  Stratford  actor, 
and  several  quite  as  unauthentic  still  hold  the  stage,  and,  as 
the  whims  or  fancies  of  authors  determine,  are  reproduced 
in  the  various  publications  relating  to  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works  which  are  appearing  constantly.  Among  these  the 
most  popular,  perhaps,  are  the  Felton  and  Chandos  portraits, 
so  called,  and  we  shall  treat  them  somewhat  fully. 

^  James  Boaden,  Esq.,  An  Inquiry  into  Various  Pictures  and  Portraits  of 
Shakespeare,  p.  144.    London,  1 824. 
^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare^  p.  29. 

227 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

THE    FELTON    PORTRAIT 

Says  Steevens:  — 

On  Friday,  August  9,  (1794)  Mr.  Richardson,  printeseller  of 
Castle  Street,  Leicester  Square,  assured  Mr.  Steevens,  that  in 
the  course  of  business,  having  recently  waited  on  Mr.  Felton,  of 
Curzon  Street,  May  Fair,  this  gentleman  showed  him  an  ancient 
head  resembling  the  portrait  of  Shakspeare,  as  engraved  by 
Martin  Droeshout  in  1623.  This  portrait  was  purchased  at  a 
public  sale  in  1792  by  S.  Felton  of  Drayton,  Shropshire,  for  five 
guineas,  and  was  catalogued  as,  "A  curious  portrait  of  Shak- 
speare painted  in  1597." 

After  the  sale  the  purchaser,  seeking  its  history  from  the 
auctioneer,  was  told  that  it  was  formerly  in  the  Boar's  Head 
Tavern,  an  unfortunate  story,  it  seems,  for  Steevens  declares 
that  so  many  spurious  portraits  had  been  sold  as  coming  from 
the  Boar's  Head  that  it  was  "high  time  that  picture  dealers 
should  avail  themselves  of  another  story,  this  being  completely 
worn  out  and  no  longer  fit  for  service."  Felton  then  tried  to 
trace  its  origin.  He  sought  Sloman,  the  landlord,  and  his 
wife,  who  kept  the  tavern  when  the  picture  was  said  to  have 
been  in  the  house;  but  both  had  died,  and  later  he  found  their 
successor,  who  ought  to  have  known  if  it  had  been  there,  as 
he  was  the  former  landlord's  assistant  before  assuming  charge 
of  the  premises ;  but  he  also  declared  his  utter  ignorance  of 
the  portrait.  The  price  it  was  sold  at  is  sufficient  to  show 
how  it  was  regarded  by  connoisseurs  of  the  time;  but  the 
Chandos  portrait,  the  reputation  of  which  had  been  bolstered 
up  by  its  aristocratic  ownership,  was  losing  ground,  and  here 
was  a  financial  opportunity  for  a  sharp  picture  dealer.  The 
result  was  the  exploitation  of  the  Felton  Shakspere. 

Of  course  the  rival  dealer  who  was  publishing  the  Chandos 
"'original"  came  to  the  rescue  of  his  favorite,  and  truths  of  an 
amusing  character  were  told.  We  read  that  "The  few  remain- 
ing advocates  of  the  Chandosan  Canvas,"  declared  that  the 
Felton  "original"  "exhibited  not  a  single  trait  of  Shakspeare's 

228 


THE   DROESHOUT 


THE   FELTON 


THE   CHANDOS  THE   JANSSEN 

THE   BEST   KNOWN   OF  THE    "SHAKESPEARE"    PORTRAITS 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

countenance/'  not  even  of  that  "deformed  by  Droeshout/' 
but  resembled  "The  sign  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverly  when  it  had 
been  changed  to  a  Saracen's  head,  on  which  occasion  the  Spec- 
tator observes  that  the  features  of  the  gentle  Knight  were 
still  apparent  through  the  lineaments  of  the  ferocious  Mussul- 
man." Even  the  stiff  collar  was  held  up  for  disapproval,  and 
its  "pointed  corners,  resembling  the  wings  of  a  bat,"  were  said 
to  be  "constant  indications  of  a  mischievous  agency." 

But  in  spite  of  these  fierce  onslaughts,  the  new  aspirant  for 
public  favor  prospered,  and  when  its  promoters  succeeded  in 
inducing  Boydell  and  Nicol  to  make  it  the  frontispiece  of 
their  new  edition  of  the  works,  and  publicly  announced  that 
these  incomparable  experts  were  "thoroughly  convinced  of 
the  genuineness  of  Mr.Felton's  Shakspeare,"^  and  should  use 
it  "instead  of  having  recourse  to  the  exploded  Picture  in- 
herited by  the  Chandos  Family,"  its  rival  was  quite  eclipsed. 

THE   CHANDOS   PORTRAIT 

This  portrait  had  the  honor  of  being  copied  by  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  and  also  for  Malone  by  Humphrey,  as  well  as  for 
Capell  by  an  unknown  hand.  On  the  back  of  his  copy  Malone 
has  inscribed  the  following: — 

The  original  having  been  painted  by  a  very  ordinary  hand, 
having  been  at  some  subsequent  period  painted  over,  and  being 
now  in  a  state  of  decay,  this  copy,  which  is  a  very  faithful  one, 
is,  in  my  opinion,  invaluable. 

Yet  of  these  copies  Boaden  notes  this  important  difference, 
that  Sir  Joshua's  copy  is  characterized  by  smartness  and 
pleasantry;  that  of  Mr.  Humphrey  by  thoughtful  gravity; 
and  of  Capell's  he  remarks :  — 

Whether  Sir  Joshua  used  the  freedom  to  mix  something  of  the 
expression  of  the  bust  with  his  copy  of  the  picture,  I  know  not, 
but  certainly  he  has  given  to  his  work  a  brisk  pertness,  which  is 

^  Steevens,  The  Plays  of  William  Shakespeare,  pp.  4-18. 
229 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

clearly  not  in  the  copy  made  for  Mr.  Capell,  and  which  I  certainly 
do  not  believe  to  have  ever  been  visible  on  the  original.^ 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  the  "original"  which 
had  been  "at  some  subsequent  period  painted  over,"  origi- 
nally looked. 

Boaden  gives  the  pedigree  of  the  Chandos  portrait.  Start- 
ing with  Joseph  Taylor,  an  actor,  in  1653,  he  traces  it  to 
William  Davenant,  the  son  of  the  innkeeper  whose  tavern  the 
Stratford  actor  is  said  to  have  patronized  when  on  his  infre- 
quent journeys  to  and  from  London  after  the  purchase  of 
New  Place ;  then  through  Betterton  to  Mrs.  Barry,  the  actress, 
by  whom  it  was  sold  to  Robert  Keck;  and  finally  into  the 
possession  of  the  Marquis  of  Caernarvon.  Of  its  authenticity 
Boaden  cites  a  tradition  that  it  was  originally  painted  for 
Sir  Thomas  Charges  "from  a  young  man  who  had  the  good 
fortune  to  resemble  the  actor."  William  Davenant  was  a  boy 
ten  years  old  when  the  actor  died,  and,  says  Boaden,  "There 
is  a  high  probability  that  he  remembered  his  person,  and  was 
sure  of  the  verisimilitude  of  Taylor's  picture."  Davenant, 
who,  by  the  way,  was  Charles  ILs  poet  laureate  and  was 
knighted,  Sidney  Lee  describes  as  "morally  a  poor  creature." 
Referring  to  the  statements  made  in  the  pedigree  of  the 
Chandos  portrait  he  says :  — 

There  is  not  a  particle  even  of  presumptive  evidence  in  favor 
of  either  one  of  these  assertions.  And  were  the  portraits  clearly 
traceable  to  Davenant,  some  better  testimony  than  his  bare  word, 
or  even  his  actual  belief,  is  necessary  to  establish  the  authenticity 
of  such  a  picture.  In  my  judgment,  the  Chandos  head  has  no 
claim  whatever  to  be  regarded  as  a  contemporary  portrait  of 
Shakespeare.  2 

It  is  amusing  to  note  that  Kneller  made  a  copy  of  the 
Chandos  head  and  presented  it  to  Dryden,  whom,  Boaden 
with   a  quaint  humor  remarks,  distinguished  himself  by 

^  Boaden,  An  Inquiry,  etc.,  p.  42. 
^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  cxxiii. 

230 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

cramming  upon  Kneller  the  very  drug  with  which  Ben  Jonson 
had  so  long  before  choked  the  Dutchman  Droeshout.  Even  the 
rhymes  are  the  same. 

Jonson:  Wherein  the  Graver  had  a  strife 

With  Nature  to  out  do  the  Hfe. 
Dryden:  Such  are  thy  pieces  imitating  Hfe 

So  near  they  almost  conquer  in  the  strife. 

Of  the  Felton  portrait  Lee  says :  — 

The  very  period  at  which  this  head  first  came  into  public 
notice  casts  suspicion  upon  it;  for  Shakespeare  forgery  and 
fabrication  then  were  rife. 

And  referring  to  the  inscription  on  the  back  of  the  por- 
trait :  — 

This  inscription  was,  by  those  who  first  brought  the  picture 
into  notice,  and  by  the  publisher  of  the  first  engraving  from  it, 
supposed  to  be  "Guil  Shakspeare,  1597,  R.N.";  and  it  was  not 
until  some  years  after  that  Mr.  Abraham  Wivell,  a  painter,  hav- 
ing rubbed  some  oil  upon  the  back  of  the  picture  to  nourish  the 
decayed  wood,  brought  out  the  writing  more  clearly,  and  dis- 
covered that  it  was  "Guil  Shakespeare,  1597,  R.B." 

This  seems  easy  of  explanation.  The  forger  of  the  portrait 
had  to  put  initials  of  some  sort  on  his  picture,  and  having  no 
knowledge  of  the  tradition  that  Shakspere's  fellow  actor, 
Burbage,  was  said  to  have  been  an  amateur  painter,  he  took 
the  first  which  came  to  mind ;  later,  when  the  owner  became 
aware  of  the  tradition,  he  realized  that  changing  the  N  to 
B  would  identify  the  portrait  as  an  original,  and  greatly  en- 
hance its  pecuniary  value.  It  was  an  easy  thing  to  put  some 
oil  upon  it  to  "nourish  the  wood,"  and  by  so  doing,  and  the 
stroke  of  a  brush,  cause  a  very  plausible  transformation  of 
the  offending  letter.  But  was  Burbage  a  portrait  painter  .f* 
Referring  to  Granger,  who  has  been  mentioned  as  having 
given  currency  to  the  tradition,  it  is  found  that  Granger  ac- 
quired his  information  from  the  "Critical  Review"  (London) 
for  December,  1770,  but  the  article  in  question  states  that  it 

231 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

was  "  Painted  by  either  Richard  Burbage  or  John  Taylor^  the 
player,  the  latter  of  whom  left  it  by  will  to  Sir  William  Dav- 
enant."^  After  a  persistent  search  to  verify  the  tradition  re- 
specting Burbage's  use  of  the  brush  in  portraiture,  we  ven- 
ture the  opinion  that  it  originates  in  an  abominable  elegy 
written  on  his  death,  March  13, 1618.  It  is  entitled,  "On  Mr. 
Richard  Burbidg  our  excellent  both  player  and  painter,"  and 
begins,  "Some  skillful  limner  aid  me." 

So  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  Burbage  never 
painted  a  portrait  in  his  life,  though  we  have  a  portrait  said 
not  only  to  have  been  painted  by  him,  but  of  himself.  Cer- 
tainly there  is  no  portrait  known  to  have  been  painted  by 
him,  and  no  contemporaneous  evidence  to  support  the  tradi- 
tion mentioned  by  Granger  but  the  word  "painter,"  used  by 
an  unknown  and  verbose  scribbler,  and  a  head  of  a  woman 
in  the  Dulwich  Collection. 

There  is,  however,  an  entry  in  an  account  book  found  at 
Belvoir  Castle  that  on  March  31,  1613,  Shakspere  and  Bur- 
bage were  paid  forty-four  shillings  each  about  my  Lorde's 
"impresso";  that  is,  a  representation  of  his  arms  or  other  in- 
signia. Burbage  probably  painted  his  rude  stage  scenery,  as 
actors  often  have  done,  and  this  may  have  been  what  his 
elegist  meant.  This  kind  of  coarse  painting  was  what  the 
steward  of  Belvoir  required  for  the  pageant. 

But  how  did  the  actor  come  into  the  transaction.?  He  had 
been  the  factotum  in  arranging  scenery  for  the  plays  he  put 
upon  the  stage  for  Burbage,  who,  on  his  way  through  Strat- 
ford to  Belvoir  in  the  adjacent  county  of  Leicester,  bethought 
him  of  his  old  assistant,  and  engaged  him  to  lend  a  hand  for 
similar  work  in  the  coming  pageant.  The  actor's  employment 
for  this  service  throws  a  clear  light  upon  the  character  of  his 
employment  when  in  the  service  of  Burbage  during  his  Lon- 
don career. 

^  Rev.  J.  Granger,  A  Biographical  History  of  England,  vol.  i,  p.  259.  London, 
1804. 

232 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

With  regard  to  the  Dulwich  portrait,  which  has  been  pointed 
to  as  proof  that  Burbage  was  an  artist,  finding  nothing  satis- 
factory in  print  upon  the  subject,  the  writer  thought  best  to 
investigate  it,  and  found  that  a  portrait  of  a  young  woman  in  a 
dark  green  bodice  with  red  sleeves,  the  head  turned  to  the  left, 
painted  on  a  canvas  twenty  by  sixteen  and  a  half  inches,  and 
numbered  103,  was  described  on  Cartwright's  Catalogue,  as 
*^ A  woman  s  head  on  a  bord,  dun  hy  Mr.  Burbige,  ye  Actor." 
Mr.  Bicknell,  clerk  to  the  Governors  of  Dulwich,  in  a  letter  to 
the  writer  respecting  it,  says :  "The  identification,  however, 
can  hardly  be  correct.  It  will  be  observed  that  this  picture  is 
on  canvas,  while  the  head,  painted  by  Burbage,  was  on  panel." 
To  identify  No.  103  with  the  portrait  described  in  the  cata- 
logue, Mr.  Bicknell  kindly  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
Lysons,  in  his  "Environs  of  London,"  1792,  describes  this 
picture  as  in  chiaro  obscuro  "a  description,"  he  says,  "which 
so  far  would  apply  to  this  picture."  It  would  be  of  some  inter- 
est to  know  how  the  name  of  Burbage  got  into  Cartwright's 
Catalogue,  though,  if  it  substantiated  the  claim  that  he  was 
an  artist,  it  would  add  nothing  to  the  authenticity  of  the  Fel- 
ton  portrait,  which  is  too  palpable  a  fraud  to  be  rehabilitated, 
though  it  might  give  us  a  new  crop  of  "R.B."  originals  of 
the  Stratford  actor. 

THE   JANSSEN    PORTRAIT 

Let  us  now  consider  the  Janssen  portrait  which  has  been 
claimed  to  have  been  painted  for  Southampton  of  his  "favor- 
ite poet,"  for  the  only  reason  that  Janssen  painted  his  lord- 
ship. 

This  is  another  "original"  with  a  descriptive  pedigree. 
Janssen  was  a  Dutch  painter,  the  date  of  whose  birth  has  been 
disputed,  but  which  is  now  ascertained  to  have  been  in  1593, 
and  as  this  picture  is  dated  16 10,  he  would  have  been  but 
seventeen,  which,  in  itself,  is  sufficient  proof  that  he  could  not 
have  painted  the  portrait  in  question,  as  the  character  of  the 

233 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

work  shows  that  it  was  the  work  of  an  artist  of  experience ;  in 
fact,  it  is  evident  that  it  was  never  intended  as  a  portrait  of 
the  actor.  That  it  has  been  tampered  with  since  it  was  ex- 
ploited as  an  original  Shakspere  is  proved  by  an  engraving 
made  by  Earldom  for  Jennens,  a  former  owner,  upon  which 
appears  above  the  head  a  scroll  bearing  the  words,  "UT 
MAGUS  "  =  Like  a  Magician.  Experts,  too,  who  have  studied 
it,  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  figure  "6"  in  "46"  has  been 
changed  from  a  cipher.  This  portrait  was  first  brought  to 
public  notice  in  1761,  and  the  most  ingenious  attempts  have 
been  made  to  carry  it  back  to  the  time  it  purports  to  have 
been  painted ;  hence,  three  different  pedigrees  have  been  pro- 
vided for  it,  neither  of  which  can  be  regarded  as  of  the  least 
value  by  any  one  who  has  not  been  infected  by  the  Stratford 
bacillus.  Steevens  was  the  first  to  assail  its  authenticity,  and 
since  his  time  it  has  been  a  storm  center  of  profitless  dispute. 
That  it  was  intended  for  a  portrait  of  some  old  worthy,  who 
would  be  surprised  if  he  could  return  and  see  what  a  fuss  has 
been  made  over  his  once  admired  portrait,  is  not  open  to 
doubt.  The  portrait  has,  however,  served  a  purpose,  as  other 
"originals"  show  its  influence  blended  with  that  of  Droes- 
hout,  which,  to  some  minds,  is  even  made  to  establish  its  own 
authenticity. 

THE    ASHBOURNE    PORTRAIT 

This  picture  has  no  pedigree.  It  came  before  the  public 
when  pedigrees  of  original  Shaksperes  were  in  such  bad  odor 
that  it  was  thought  prudent  to  have  it  appear  like  a  bolt  from 
the  blue.  In  this  case,  "A  friend  in  London  wrote  to  the 
second  master  of  the  Free  Grammar  School  at  Ashbourne, 
Derbyshire,"  that  he  had  seen  a  portrait  of  Shakspere  that  he 
was  positive  was  a  genuine  picture,  and  that  the  owner  only 
valued  it  as  a  very  fine  painting.  Being  too  poor  to  purchase 
it  himself,  he  advised  the  schoolmaster  "by  all  means  to  have 
it."  The  reply  went  back,  "Secure  the  prize,"  much,  doubt- 

234 


THE  ASHBOURNE 


THE  GRAFTON 


THE  ZUCCHERO 


THE   SANDERS  1 


'Though  Holder's  opinion  was  that  this  was  the  work  of  Zincke,  his  partner  in  fraud,  with  whose 
style  he  was  familiar,  this  has  been  held  in  high  esteem  by  many  of  the  actor's  devotees. 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

less,  to  the  satisfaction  of  "  the  friend,"  who,  if  the  story  of  the 
find  be  true,  had  a  good  opportunity  to  gather  in  a  legitimate 
commission.  We  should  remember,  however,  that  the  poor 
schoolmaster  was  a  painter  himself  in  his  leisure  hours,  and 
sold  his  original  for  four  hundred  pounds.  The  Ashbourne 
purports  to  have  been  painted  a  year  later  than  the  Janssen, 
and  bears  all  the  familiar  ear-marks  of  a  faked  antique,  yet 
believers  in  the  Messianic  actor  regard  it  as  an  example  of 
genuine  portraiture.  That  it  has  borrowed  an  influence  from 
both  the  Droeshout  and  Janssen  is  evident. 

THE    GRAFTON    PORTRAIT 

This  portrait  but  recently  came  to  public  notice,  creating 
quite  a  sensation.  It  claims  to  have  been  painted  in  1588, 
when  the  actor  was  twenty-four  years  of  age,  about  the  time 
when  he  was  working  about  the  Burbage  stables,  and  picking 
up  a  living  as  best  he  could.  The  story  is  that  it  was  origi- 
nally given  by  the  Duke  of  Grafton  to  one  of  his  servants,  and 
descended  from  him  for  several  generations  to  the  present 
owntr.  The  letters  "W.  S."  are  on  the  stretcher,  and 
''JESYM  24,"  and  the  date  "1588,'*  on  the  upper  corners 
respectively.  Although  it  has  been  regarded  by  many  as  a 
vivid  representation  of  the  actor  in  early  manhood,  no  one 
with  cool  judgment  can  regard  it  otherwise  than  as  a  glaring 
fraud.  It  is  one  of  those  portraits  of  which  O.  Halliwell- 
Phillipps  sorrowfully  says,  speaking  of  those  who  require 
rational  evidence  of  the  authenticity  of  portraits  of  the 
actor : — 

There  are  others  to  whom  a  picture's  history  Is  not  of  the 
slightest  moment,  their  reflective  Instinct  enabling  them,  with- 
out effort  or  Investigation,  to  recognize  In  an  old  curiosity  shop 
the  dramatic  visage  that  belonged  to  the  author  of. "Ham- 
let." 1 

^  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  F.R.S.,  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare^  vol.  i, 
p.  297.  London,  1889. 

23s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

THE   ZUCCHERO   PORTRAIT 

This  portrait  represents  a  writer,  his  head  resting  upon  his 
right  hand.  He  appears  to  be  in  deep  meditation  upon  a 
subject  which  he  is  composing.  The  age  of  the  man  is  perhaps 
twenty-five,  certainly  not  over  thirty.  On  the  back  of  the 
panel  upon  which  it  is  painted  are  the  words  "Guglielm 
Shakspere."  The  artist,  whose  work  this  portrait  purports 
to  be,  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  who,  having  caused  offense  at 
the  Papal  Court,  fled  and  sought  a  domicile  in  England  in 
1574,  and  had  the  honor  of  painting  the  Queen  of  Scots,  and 
subsequently,  Elizabeth.  One  of  Bacon's  portraits  is  said  to 
be  from  his  brush. 

The  so-called  Shakspere  is  in  every  respect  Italian,  and 
bears  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to  the  Droeshout,  which 
has  been  supposed  to  represent  the  traditional  features  of  the 
actor,  and  has  served  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  as  a  study  for 
other  painters ;  in  fact,  it  bears  a  resemblance  to  the  head  of 
Tasso.  Zucchero  left  England,  says  Boaden,  in  1584.^  This 
is  before  the  actor  left  Stratford ;  at  that  time  he  was  wholly 
unknown  and  in  dire  poverty.  Boaden  suggests  that  it  is  a 
portrait  of  the  artist's  brother,  Taddio,  possibly  his  own,  and 
he  calls  attention  to  the  coincidences  of  Zucchero's  death 
with  that  of  the  actor,  161 6. 

THE    SANDERS   PORTRAIT 

The  Sanders  portrait  is  a  veritable  antique,  and  no  doubt 
belongs  to  the  period  of  the  Centenary,  or  the  Garrick  Jubilee 
of  1769,  when  spurious  Shaksperes  were  numerous  and  ne- 
gotiable. It  has  all  the  hall-marks  of  Zincke  and  Holder, 
though,  of  course,  these  were  not  the  only  sinners  who  faked 
the  pictures  of  the  great,  and  had  them  discovered  as  coming 
from  the  Boar's  Head,  or  behind  wainscotting,  or  in  other  out- 
of-the-way  places ;  there  were  many  others.  This  picture  is  on 

^  Boaden,  An  Inquiry^  etc.,  p.  62. 
236 


THE  ZOUST 


THE  STRATFORD 


THE   ELI   HOUS3 


THE  FLOWER 


Note  the  direct  influence  of  the  "  Felton  "  which  reflects  a  modified  influence  from  the  "  Droeshout. 
The  anatomical  structure  of  all  these  heads  show  marked  differences. 


THE    BEST   KNOWN   OF  THE    "SHAKESPEARE"    PORTRAITS 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

a  panel  sixteen  and  a  half  by  thirteen  inches,  and  hardly  has 
a  feature  in  common  with  any  other  representation  of  the 
actor.  If  it  were  painted  for  a  spurious  portrait,  the  painter 
made  some  very  unnecessary  blunders,  especially  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  hair,  which  he  might  better  have  made  to  con- 
form in  some  degree  to  other  portraits.  It  may  have  been  a 
genuine  portrait  of  some  one  to  which  the  application  of  the 
written  slip  of  paper  on  the  back  was  all  that  the  dealer  who 
sold  it  deemed  necessary  to  give  it  currency.  Another  blunder 
was  made  in  the  inscription,  the  paper  and  handwriting  being 
unquestionably  modern,  possibly  forty  or  fifty  years  old.  The 
portrait  is  unworthy  of  the  space  we  have  given  it.  The  fol- 
lowing is  the  inscription :  — 

Shakspere 

Born  April  23-1564 

Died  April  23-1616 

Aged  52 

This  Likeness  taken  1603, 

Age  at  that  time  39  yrs. 

THE   ZOUST   PORTRAIT 

The  Zoust  portrait  first  came  to  light  in  the  possession  of  a 
London  painter  in  1725,  and  for  some  time  was  exploited  as  a 
discovery  of  importance ;  in  fact,  it  was  considered  one  of  the 
many  originals  of  the  actor,  whose  time  was  supposed  to  have 
been  so  largely  occupied  from  youth  in  sitting  for  his  portrait 
that  one  of  his  biographers  expresses  wonder  that,  amid  all 
his  exacting  occupations,  he  found  so  much  time  to  devote 
to  portrait  painters.  But  the  Zoust  portrait  finally  came  to 
grief  when  it  was  discovered  that  the  pseudo-painter  was  not 
born  until  1637,  twenty-one  years  after  the  actor's  death; 
and  yet,  this  portrait  has  been  thought  to  be  of  sufficient  in- 
terest to  receive  the  honor  of  being  exhibited  in  the  Memo- 
rial Gallery  at  Stratford,  and  of  having  served  as  a  guide  to 
the  artist  who  modeled  the  bust  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

237 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

THE  STRATFORD,  THE  ELY  HOUSE,  AND  THE  FLOWER  PORTRAITS 

There  are  three  portraits  in  the  possession  of  the  Birth- 
place Trustees  at  Stratford,  all  exhibited  as  originals  to  the 
twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand  tourists  who  annually  visit 
their  town  greatly  to  its  enrichment. 

The  Stratford  is  a  painting  wholly  without  value  as  a  genu- 
ine relic  or  as  a  work  of  art,  and  no  critic  of  judgment  has  yet 
ventured  to  imperil  his  reputation  by  indorsing  it.  Yet  it  is 
old,  probably  a  century  old,  and  resembles  the  bust  from 
which  it  is  thought  to  have  been  painted.  The  Town  Clerk 
Mr.  Hunt,  having  purchased  it  for  a  song  at  a  second-hand 
shop,  presented  it  in  1867  to  the  Trustees,  and  the  obsequious 
guide  will  exhibit  it  to  you  with  an  approving  air,  but,  should 
you  raise  the  question  of  originality,  will  regard  you  with  an 
air  of  severity. 

The  Ely  House  portrait  is  inscribed  "Ae.  39  x  1603."  It 
exhibits  evidence  of  having  been  copied  from  the  Droeshout 
engraving  by  an  artist  of  considerable  ability,  though,  owing 
to  the  absence  of  details  conspicuous  in  the  Droeshout,  doubts 
have  been  expressed  whether  this  evidence  is  sufficient  to  iden- 
tify it ;  but  there  are  so  many  faulty  points  in  this  famous  en- 
graving which  a  skilled  artist  would  dislike  to  reproduce  that 
we  are  warranted  in  entertaining  the  inference  that  the  painter 
of  the  Ely  picture  judiciously  ignored  the  more  glaring  faults 
of  the  engraving,  and  gave  rein  to  his  fancy  as  others  have 
done  in  painting  pictures  of  the  actor.  This  picture  possesses 
no  claim  whatever  to  authenticity. 

The  Flower  portrait  which  all  Stratfordians  now  loyally 
asseverate  is  the  only  original,  the  very  one  from  which 
Droeshout  made  his  engraving,  was  discovered  by  a  Strat- 
ford gentleman  in  1892  at  Peckham  Rye,  in  the  possession  of 
"A  private  gentleman  with  artistic  tastes,"  who  purchased 
it  of  "An  obscure  dealer  about  1840."  As  before  remarked, 
pedigrees  had  once  been  supposed  to  be  requisite,  but  in  every 

238 


§t 

I. 

.^0'^ 

r     .'.'.A^Wli 

THE  JENNINGS 


THE  BURN 


THE  WINSTANLEY 


THE  BELMONT  HALL 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

case  they  had  proved  to  be  inconvenient  as  so  many  keen 
critics  offensively  applied  themselves  to  ferreting  out  their 
validity;  hence  this  aspirant  for  favor  must  have  no  pedigree 
whatever.  The  bare  assertion  that  one  gentleman  purchased 
it  from  another  gentleman  "of  taste,"  who  was  fortunate 
enough  to  have  purchased  it  of  an  "obscure"  dealer  who  knew 
nothing  about  it,  should  be  quite  sufficient;  in  fact,  should 
disarm  all  meddlesome  critics.  Such  people  have  nothing  to 
assail  in  this  case,  not  even  a  prevaricating  dealer  to  entangle 
with  perplexing  questions.  All  they  can  do  is  to  study  the 
new  "original"  itself.  It  is  described  as  "Painted  on  a  panel 
formed  of  two  planks  of  old  elm."  The  use  of  the  word  "old," 
of  course,  intensifies  the  antique  flavor  of  the  picture.  In  the 
upper  left-hand  corner  is  the  inscription  "  Will"^  Shakespeare, 
1609."  That  it  is  a  copy  of  the  Droeshout  instead  of  being  its 
prototype,  no  one  can  doubt  who  has  not  been  hypnotized  by 
yielding  his  reason  to  the  New  Messianic  cult.  It  can  hardly 
be  urged  by  our  Stratford  friends  that  Droeshout  would  have 
added  the  objectionable  dark  lines  about  the  back  of  the  face, 
which  so  strongly  suggest  the  edges  of  a  mask,  if  it  had  not 
been  in  a  model  from  which  they  assume  he  copied ;  while  it 
can  be  convincingly  urged  that  a  copyist  of  the  ability  dis- 
played in  the  painting  would  not  reproduce  them  in  so  marked 
a  manner.  But  there  must  be  an  authentic  portrait  of  the  new 
Messiah,  and  this  is  certainly  more  interesting  than  the  en- 
graving ;  but  what  can  be  said  of  it  when  the  latter  is  proved 
to  be  unauthentic,  as  we  hope  to  show  .^ 

THE   JENNINGS    PORTRAIT 

The  Jennings  portrait  is  among  the  more  absurd  of  the 
two  hundred  or  more  "original"  portraits  of  the  actor.  It 
was  first  known  as  the  property  of  H.  C.  Jennings,  of  Batter- 
sea.  In  the  upper  left  corner,  the  inscription,  "iE  33,"  is 
conspicuous,  and  conveniently  synchronizes  the  date  of  paint- 
ing with  the  dedication  of  "Venus  and  Adonis"  to  the  Earl 

239 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  Southampton,  to  whose  family  Jennings  claimed  to  have 
traced  it.   It  should  be  compared  with 

THE    BURN    PORTRAIT 

Which  has  had  the  honor  of  being  exhibited  at  Burlington 
House,  and  the  South  Kensington  "Shakespeare  Show/' 
These  portraits  are  of  quite  different  people,  yet  the  owners 
imagine  when  they  behold  them  that  they  are  looking  upon 
a  likeness  of  the  author  of  "Hamlet."  Self-deception  could 
hardly  go  farther. 

THE   WINSTANLEY   PORTRAIT 

There  has  been  much  acrimonious  discussion  over  this  por- 
trait, which  first  came  to  light  in  the  hands  of  Mr.Winstanley, 
an  auctioneer  of  Liverpool,  in  1819.  The  owner,  though 
spoken  of  as  a  reputable  man,  became  mixed  up  later  with 
other  fraudulent  portraits,  which  awakened  unpleasant  sus- 
picion of  his  integrity;  in  fact,  he  was  publicly  charged  with 
being  on  good  terms  with  picture  fakers.  He  certainly  knew 
Holder  according  to  an  anecdote  related  by  himself.  This  por- 
trait bears  the  following  inscription :  — 

As  Hollie,  Ivie,  Misseltoe  Defie  the  wintrle  blaste 
Despite  of  chillings  Envie  so  thy  well  earn'd  fame  shall  laste 
Then  let  ye  ever  livinge  laurel  beare  thy  much  beloved  name 
O  Will.  Shakspere.  B.  J. 

The  initials  are  supposed  to  stand  for  those  of  Ben  Jonson, 
who  would  probably  disown  them  in  vigorous  terms  were  he 
alive.  Holder,  who  seems  to  have  regarded  picture-faking 
as  a  legitimate  mhier,  recognized  it  as  the  work  of  Zincke,  his 
old-time  associate  in  the  business.  This  ought  sufficiently  to 
determine  its  status;  but  it  will  be  possible  at  any  time  for 
some  adventurous  spirit  to  discover  in  it,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Cunningham,  or  Revel's  document,  a  genuine  original,  and  to 
have  his  discovery  hailed  by  enthusiasts  as  genuine  beyond 
all  possibility  of  doubt. 

240 


'T>> ''  >  f'* '  >' 


SHAKSPERE    MARRIAGE    PICTURE 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 


THE   MARRIAGE    PICTURE 


The  height  of  absurdity  has  been  reached  by  this  painting, 

which  was  discovered  by  Holder,  the  one-time  associate  of 

Zincke,  the  unscrupulous  manufacturer  of  spurious  portraits 

of  the  Stratford  actor.   In  spite  of  the  obscurity  and  poverty 

of  the  unfortunate  actor,  and  his  hasty  marriage,  it  professes 

to  be  a  contemporary  painting  of  the  event.   Holder  claimed  to 

have  bought  it  in  1872  with  several  other  dilapidated  pictures, 

this  being  so  bad  that  he  at  first  thought  it  to  be  worthless, 

but  upon  cleaning  it,  found  the  following  inscription :  — 

Rare  Lymnynge  Marriage  of  Anne  Hathaway 

With  vs  doth  make  appere  William  Shakespere. 

He  soon  sold  it  at  a  good  price  to  a  Mr.  John  Mandan,  who 
described  it,  in  the  London  "Notes  and  Queries"  of  1872,  as 
representing  Richard  Hathaway  and  his  wife,  Jone,  weighing 
out  a  marriage  portion  for  their  daughter,  Anne.  In  the  ad- 
joining room  is  to  be  seen  through  the  open  doorway  the  mar- 
riage service  in  progress.  Of  course,  it  was  necessary  to  pre- 
serve Droeshout's  bald  head,  even  if  the  bridegroom  was  but 
eighteen.  This,  and  the  inscription,  should  be  sufficient  to 
condemn  it,  to  say  nothing  of  the  oversight  of  representing  a 
poor  farmer  weighing  out  a  liberal  marriage  portion  for  his 
daughter  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  a  rich  banker.  Neither 
space  nor  patience  will  permit  a  reproduction  of  the  ridiculous 
arguments  adduced  to  prove  its  authenticity  as  a  veritable 
representation  of  the  marriage  in  1582.  Yet  enough  has  been 
written  about  it  to  make  a  volume,  and,  eventually,  it  may 
find  its  way  to  Stratford,  and  be  placed  with  other  "original" 
relics. 

Perhaps  some  readers  may  not  be  aware  that  there  are 
thousands  of  portraits  of  the  forgotten  dead  flitting  about 
as  if  vainly  seeking  recognition,  or  stored  away  in  antique 
shops  the  world  over,  those  dim  haunts  so  redolent  of  the 
storied  past,  which  fascinate  beyond  reason  the  wandering 

241 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

antiquarian.  Some  of  these  portraits,  revealing  high  artistic 
abihty,  are  of  men  and  women  who  evidently  enjoyed  distin- 
guished positions,  social,  and  even  official,  in  this  whirligig 
world,  and  are  subjects  of  study  to  determine,  if  possible,  to 
whom  they  belonged,  as  the  writer  knows,  his  opinion  having 
been  sought  on  such  occasions.  Very  few,  however,  are  res- 
cued from  the  forgotten,  and  restored  to  their  true  place 
among  the  remembered.  These  forgotten  portraits  have  ex- 
periences which  would  astonish  their  former  owners ;  some, 
by  inconsiderable  changes,  being  transformed  into  the  por- 
traits of  historical  personages  of  the  more  or  less  remote  past. 
A  few  initials,  a  date,  an  insignia,  if  needed,  are  worked  in  so 
as  to  be  difficult  to  decipher,  and  the  work  becomes  a  rare 
old  original,  and,  of  course,  valuable  to  somebody.  Others  of 
these  esprits  perdus  find  themselves  on  tapestried  walls  amidst 
costly  surroundings,  playing,  perhaps,  the  part  of  ancestors 
in  a  modern  family  drama.  This  is  probably  less  uncommon 
than  may  be  imagined.  The  writer,  some  years  ago,  visited 
the  suburbs  of  a  neighboring  city  to  examine  a  library  adver- 
tised as  "rare,"  as  it  was,  indeed,  too  rare  for  his  taste.  The 
owner  of  the  place,  which  was  beautiful  for  situation,  had 
suddenly  acquired  fortune  by  inheritance,  and  had  proceeded 
to  expend  it  "artistically."  The  buildings,  surrounded  by 
splendid  trees,  real  antiques,  represented  a  feudal  castle  with 
its  appendages,  surmounted  by  battlements  of  wood,  and  the 
approach  was  guarded  by  a  portcullis,  also  of  wood.  There 
was  a  chapel,  and  in  the  dim  light  was  a  tomb  upon  which 
reposed  a  recumbent  figure  ingeniously  painted  to  simulate 
marble,  and  about  the  walls  were  glittering  suits  of  armor, 
such  reproductions  as  one  finds  in  Florence  or  Milan,  costing, 
perhaps,  three  or  four  guineas.  But  a  greater  surprise  awaited 
one,  when  painfully  stooping  to  pass  under  a  low  arch  at  the 
end  of  a  passage,  which  had  probably  been  copied  from  some 
mediaeval  castle,  he  came  upon  a  hall  with  the  family  por- 
traits. These  were  of  all  kinds  and  of  varied  facial  expression. 

242 


BECKER  DEATH  MASK 


STRATFORD  DEATH  MASK 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

They  had  been  summoned  by  the  magic  wand  of  wealth 
from  the  uncongenial  limbo  of  an  antique  shop  to  this  no  less 
uncongenial  habitation,  and  looked  painfully  aware  of  their 
degradation.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  they  passed  under  the  auc- 
tioneer's hammer,  and  were  scattered  to  the  four  winds.  Per- 
haps these  wandering  spirits  are  now  playing  their  sorry  old 
role  of  ancestral  celebrities  in  the  families  of  other  nouveaux 
riches.  What  a  pity  that  their  proud  owners  could  not  have 
taken  them  with  them. 

THE    BECKER  DEATH   MASK 

This  death  mask  bears  the  name  of  its  discoverer,  Dr. 
Becker,  "who  found  it  in  a  rag  shop  in  Mayence"  some  time 
in  1849.  The  subject  being  unknown,  and  having  a  bald  head 
with  a  long  and  somewhat  full  face,  suggested  the  head  of  the 
Stratford  actor  as  disclosed  by  some  of  his  many  "original" 
portraits;  besides,  the  date,  1616,  was  scratched  on  its  back. 
This  date,  however,  if  originally  placed  upon  it,  would  not  be 
any  proof  of  its  authenticity,  for  many  men  with  similar  heads 
4ied  in  that  year.  The  owner,  of  course,  took  his  precious 
find  to  London,  where  it  was  hailed  as  the  very  model  used 
by  the  sculptor  of  the  bust.  It  was  also  noted  as  settling  any 
question  of  authenticity,  that  it  had  a  "few  reddish  hairs" 
sticking  to  the  plaster  on  the  apex  of  the  forehead. 

So  well  is  the  Becker  mask  regarded,  that  it  forms  the  fron- 
tispiece of  the  twelfth  volume  of  the  recent  edition  of  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works  printed  from  the  Folio  of  1623,  and  is 
regarded  by  readers,  generally,  as  a  genuine  presentment  of 
the  face  of  their  author. 

THE    STRATFORD   DEATH   MASK 

Strange  to  say  another  death  mask  has  come  to  light  very 
recently.  It  is  true  that  it  is  unlike  the  Becker  mask,  but  it 
also  has  "near  the  ear  a  small  tuft  of  reddish  hair."  Besides, 
it  has  a  point  better  than  the  Becker,  for  in  addition  to  the 

243 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

date,  1616,  this  mask  has  the  initials,  "W.  S.,"  scratched 
upon  it.  The  "reddish  hair"  seems  a  bit  unfortunate,  as  it  is 
Hkely  to  remind  one  of  coincidences  of  a  kindred  nature  in  the 
Boar's  Head  Tavern  portraits,  but  this  is  a  minor  detail  per- 
haps unworthy  of  notice,  as  is  also  the  fact  that  the  faces  are 
unlike.  It  is,  perhaps,  needless  to  remark  that  this  last  dis- 
covery is  now  declared  to  be  very  like  the  bust,  though  the 
modeling  of  the  nose  and  cheeks  was  exceedingly  clumsy ;  hence 
it  is  suggested,  — 

That  the  sculptor  of  the  monument,  wishful  to  render  the  fea- 
tures of  Shakespeare  as  they  were  in  life  and  not  in  death,  modeled 
up  the  squeeze  from  the  death  mask,  filling  up  the  sunken  cheeks, 
smoothing  away  the  wrinkles  and  roughnesses  and  pores  which 
generally  appear  on  a  death  mask,  and  remodeling  the  nose,  the 
tip  of  which  invariably  takes  a  different  shape  after  death. ^ 

This  death  mask  was  found  "in  the  shop  of  a  curio  dealer  in 
the  Midlands,"  and,  naturally,  has  no  pedigree;  yet  in  the  next 
edition  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  we  may  expect  to  see 
it  reproduced  as  another  genuine  likeness  of  the  actor,  though 
its  rival,  which  has  so  long  held  the  stage,  does  not  represent 
the  face  of  the  same  man. 

Let  us  now  take  up  the  bust,  and,  in  conclusion,  continue 
our  remarks  on  the  Droeshout  engraving,  which  the  best 
critics  fall  back  upon  as  unassailable. 

Says  Phillips :  — 

The  Stratford  efhgy  and  this  engraving  are  the  only  unques- 
tionably authentic  representations  of  the  living  Shakespeare  that 
are  known  to  exist,  not  one  of  the  numerous  others,  for  which 
claims  to  the  distinction  have  been  advanced,  having  an  eviden- 
tial pedigree  of  a  satisfactory  character.  ^ 

Sidney  Lee,  Chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Trustees,  and  Guardians  of  Shakspere's  Birthplace,  writing 
later,  says:  — 

^  P.  C.  Konodes,  in  The  London  Illustrated  News,  June  17,  191 1. 
^  PhillippSj  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  286,  297. 

244 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

Aubrey  reported  that  Shakespeare  was  "a  handsome  well- 
shaped  man,"  but  no  portrait  exists  which  can  be  said  with  ab- 
solute certainty  to  have  been  executed  during  his  lifetime,  al- 
though one  has  been  recently  discovered  with  a  good  claim  to 
that  distinction,  the  Flower.  Only  two  of  the  extant  portraits 
are  positively  known  to  have  been  produced  within  a  short 
period  after  his  death.  These  are  the  bust  in  Stratford  Church, 
and  the  frontispiece  to  the  Folio  of  1623,  the  Droeshout.  Each  is 
an  inartistic  attempt  at  a  posthumous  likeness.^ 


THE    BUST 

The  twelfth  volume  of  the  late  Reprint  of  the  Folio  of  1623 
has  for  a  frontispiece  this  bust,  accompanied  by  the  following 
statement :  — 

This,  the  oldest  representation  of  Shakespeare  in  existence, 
is  placed  on  the  north  side  of  the  chancel  of  Holy  Trinity  Church, 
Stratford,  over  the  poet's  grave.  It  was  sculptured  by  either 
Gerard  Johnson  or  one  of  his  sons,  shortly  after  Shakespeare's 
death,  and  was  originally  in  colour.  In  1793,  these  colours  were 
obscured  by  white  paint,  which  in  turn  was  removed  in  1861,  and 
the  colouring  restored.  The  carving  is  of  no  artistic  merit,  but 
its  authenticity  has  been  so  long  established,  as  to  render  its 
place  secure  at  the  head  of  Shakespearian  likenesses. 

This  statement  is  almost  wholly  erroneous.  It  is  not  the 
oldest  representation  of  the  actor  in  existence;  it  was  not 
sculptured  by  Gerard  Johnson,  —  more  correctly,  Gerald 
Janssen,  —  nor  one  of  his  sons  shortly  after  his  death ;  nor 
does  it  stand  at  the  head  of  his  likenesses,  if  the  Droeshout  is 
what  Stratfordians  claim  it  to  be,  "An  original,  but  inartistic 
portrait."  If  it  looks  at  all  like  him,  the  Droeshout,  which 
Stratfordians  are  obliged  to  cling  to  because  of  Jonson's 
expression  regarding  it,  would  be  discredited.  Steevens  took 
a  Droeshout  engraving  nearly  a  century  ago,  and  climbing  up 
to  it,  measured  and  compared  the  two,  and  declared  that  they 
were  quite  unlike.  Another  biographer,  after  a  critical  study 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  286. 

24s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  it,  not  only  freely  expressed  his  doubts  regarding  it,  but  of 
all  other  pseudo  likenesses  of  the  actor.   He  says :  — 

It  would  be  gratifying  if  we  could  give  any  faith  to  the  tradi- 
tion which  asserts  that  the  bust  of  this  monument  was  sculptured 
from  a  cast  moulded  on  the  face  of  the  departed  poet.  But  the 
cast,  if  taken,  must  have  been  taken  immediately  after  death, 
and  we  know  neither  at  whose  expense  the  monument  was  con- 
structed, nor  by  whose  hand  it  was  executed,  nor  at  what  precise 
time  it  was  erected.  But  if  we  cannot  rely  upon  the  Stratford 
bust  for  a  resemblance  of  our  immortal  dramatist,  where  are  we 
to  look  with  any  hope  of  finding  a  trace  of  his  features.^  It  is 
highly  probable  that  no  portrait  of  him  was  painted  during  his 
life,  and  it  is  certain  that  no  portrait  of  him  with  an  incontesta- 
ble claim  to  genuineness  is  at  present  in  existence.^ 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  he  gives  "the  fairest  title  to  authen- 
ticity" to  the  Chandos  which  White  denominates  "an  ear- 
ringed,  full  bearded,  heavy-eyed  thing,  unsupported  by  a 
particle  of  evidence  that  reaches  to  within  three-quarters  of 
a  century  of  the  time  at  which  it  must  have  been  painted,  if  it 
were  really  authentic."  ^  But  what  shall  we  think  when  we 
find  that  the  original  bust  has  disappeared,  and  been  forgot- 
ten, and  another  one,  wholly  unlike  the  first,  is  the  one  with 
which  the  actor's  biographers,  whom  we  have  quoted,  have 
been  deceiving  themselves  ?  And  yet  this  is  a  fact. 

In  1656,  a  history  of  Warwickshire  was  published  in  which 
appeared  an  engraving  of  the  bust  as  it  then  was.  This  shows 
quite  a  different  face  from  the  present  one,  and  in  place  of  the 
flat  cushion  with  the  person  represented  holding  a  pen  in  his 
right  hand,  and  the  left  resting  upon  a  piece  of  paper  as  though 
engaged  in  the  act  of  composition,  is  a  woolsack  pressed  to  the 
body.  The  figures  and  accessories  are  similar  but  unlike.  Were 
it  not  for  these  changes,  it  might  be  contended  with  some 
plausibility  that  Dugdale's  sketch  was  imperfect,  but,  fortu- 

1  Charles  Symmons,  D.D.,  The  Dramatic  Works  of  William  Shakspeare,  p.  11. 
Hartford,  1841. 

2  Richard  Grant  White,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  vol.  i,  p.  125. 
Boston,  1865. 

246 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

nately,  we  have  a  record  of  the  time  the  changes  in  the  bust 
were  made.  It  having  become  dilapidated,  John  Ward,  aheady 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  Fumess  gloves,  an  actor, 
and  grandfather  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  who  was  in  Stratford  in 
1746,  conceived  the  idea  of  "restoring"  it.  He  therefore  gave 
a  representation  of  Othello  for  the  purpose  of  raising  funds  to 
carry  out  his  laudable  design.  A  sufficient  sum  having  been 
obtained  the  work  was  commenced,  the  restorer  having  orders 
not  only  to  repair  but  to  beautify  it.  The  result  we  now  see. 
Some  one  may  raise  the  question  of  the  picture  by  Virtue  made 
for  Pope's  edition  of  the  works  of  1725,  but  they  might  as  well 
raise  the  question  regarding  Gravelot's  engraving  in  Hanmer's 
edition  of  1774  or  Grignion's  of  1786,  twenty-six  and  thirty- 
eight  years  after  the  restoration.  Both  are  largely  fanciful 
creations  of  the  engravers,  who  did  not  take  the  trouble  to 
go  to  Stratford  for  their  material.  In  the  case  of  Grignion, 
he  copied  from  Dugdale,  but  Virtue  and  Gravelot  indulged 
their  fancies  to  the  extent  of  introducing  an  entirely  new  bust, 
and  changing  the  position  of  the  cherubs  and  skull.  In  the 
restoration  it  is  plain  to  see  that  the  "  restorers,"  who  appear 
to  have  been  given  a  free  hand,  took  hints  from  Virtue's 
design.  We  may  regard  Dugdale's,  then,  as  the  original 
sketch  of  the  bust,  drawn  only  twenty  years  after  the  actor's 
death. 

And  yet  Sidney  Lee,  in  his  so-called  "Life"  of  Shake- 
speare, says :  — 

Before  1623  an  elaborate  monument  by  a  London  sculptor  of 
Dutch  birth,  was  erected  to  Shakespeare's  memory  in  the  chan- 
cel of  the  parish  church.  It  includes  a  half-length  bust  depicting 
the  dramatist  on  the  point  of  writing.  The  fingers  of  the  right 
hand  are  disposed  as  if  holding  a  pen,  and  under  the  left  hand  is 
a  quarto  sheet  of  paper. 

This  is  sufficient  to  show  Lee's  inexcusably  careless  method 
of  working.  Had  he  given  a  student's  study  to  his  subject, 
he  would  have  discovered  the  fact  that  the  bust  with  the  pen 

247 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

in  one  hand,  and  the  other  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  was  erected 
a  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  the  actor's  death. 

Of  course  it  may  be  objected  that  Dugdale  was  careless, 
"probably,"  for  this  is  the  favorite  word  used  by  Stratford- 
ians  for  or  against  every  thesis;  but  Dugdale,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  a  bom  antiquary,  and  the  care  which  he  exhibited 
in  his  treatment  of  the  architectural  details  surrounding  the 
bust,  and  of  other  similar  work  of  his,  disposes  of  such  a 
charge.  The  attitude  of  the  cherubs,  the  shield,  the  hour- 
glass and  spade,  the  woolsack,  were  never  invented  by  him 
we  may  be  sure.  But  how  dispose  of  Rowe,  who  was  familiar 
with  the  bust  as  late  as  1709,  and  in  his  work  gives  a  repre- 
sentation of  it  with  but  a  slight  difference  in  facial  expression, 
no  more  so  than  is  usually  found  in  the  work  of  artists  of  the 
period  ?  The  woolsack  is  especially  suggestive.  The  actor  was 
a  trader  in  wool,  an  occupation  of  which  his  family  was  much 
prouder  than  of  that  of  a  player ;  hence  their  choice  of  a  sack  of 
wool  which  was  their  most  appropriate  and,  no  doubt,  most 
highly  prized  family  emblem.  The  old  bust  was  possibly  the 
work  of  Gerald  Janssen,  and  while  it  was  not  a  work  of  art, 
we  may  reasonably  believe  that  it  is  the  only  likeness  which 
we  have  of  the  actor,  made  for  his  family  by  an  artist  who 
probably  knew  him,  and  approved  by  them :  besides,  we  hope 
to  show  by  and  by,  from  an  entirely  independent  source, 
fairly  reasonable  evidence  that  Dugdale's  portrait  resembles 
one  of  the  actor  which  appeared  on  a  title-page  of  a  work  in 
1624. 

The  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey  requires  no  exami- 
nation. The  artist,  perplexed  by  the  various  portraits  of  his 
subject,  quite  properly  created  an  almost  ideal  effigy  which 
is  wholly  unlike  the  Droeshout  portrait  or  Stratford  bust. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Roubillac  bust  and  the  Gower 
bronze  statue  at  Stratford. 

Although  enough  has  already  been  adduced  to  show  its 
spurious  character,  we  have  again  to  refer  to  the  Droeshout 

248 


THE   DROESHOUT   SHAKSPERE 


Overlaid  with  the  face,  hair,  and  beard  of 
Passe's  Bacon 


THE   DROESHOUT   SHAKSPERE 

Overlaid  with  the  nose,  eyes,  and  temple 
of  Passe's  Bacon  reversed 


THE  DROESHOUT  SHAKSPERE 

Overlaid  with  the  face  and  beard  of 
Worthington's  Bacon 


THE   DROESHOUT   SHAKSPERE 

Overlaid  with  Passe's  Bacon.   Note  alignment 
of  eyebrows,  nose,  and  cheek 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

portrait,  the  "really  authentic  likeness,"  the  one  sacred  icon 
in  the  sanctuary  of  the  actor's  biographers. 

Lawrence  has  called  attention  to  the  remarkable  black  line 
extending  "from  ear  to  chin"  on  this  mysterious  portrait,  and 
the  peculiarity  of  the  coat  which  the  artist  has  depicted. ^ 
That  the  face  strongly  resembles  a  mask  all  must  admit.  A 
clear  impression  from  an  unworn  copy  of  the  original  folio 
of  1623  shows  this  peculiarity  more  plainly  than  in  later  edi- 
tions after  the  plate  became  worn.  Such  is  the  engraving  here 
shown,  taken  from  a  photograph  made  for  the  writer.  The 
resemblance  to  a  mask  is  enhanced  by  turning  it  upside  down. 
The  figure,  it  will  be  observed,  is  much  too  small  for  the  head. 
This  has  been  observed  by  the  biographers,  the  latest,  Sidney 
Lee,  who  says,  "The  dimensions  of  the  head  and  face  are  dis- 
proportionately large  as  compared  with  those  of  the  body."  2 
Attention  is  also  attracted  by  the  coat,  which  presents  the 
back  of  the  right  arm  on  the  left  arm  of  the  figure,  which  sig- 
nifies that  the  person  represented  is  masquerading  in  a  false 
coat.  That  this  is  such  a  garment  we  have  the  testimony  of 
some  of  the  best-known  London  tailors.  It  plainly  tells  its 
story.  Mr.  William  Stone  Booth,  however,  gives  us  the  most 
remarkable  evidence  of  an  intention  to  hide  an  author's  face 
behind  one  purporting  to  be  that  of  another  that  has  ever 
been  attempted.  Strangely  enough,  more  than  fifty  years 
ago,  WiUiam  Henry  Smith,^  a  student  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works,  saw  in  the  portrait  of  the  philosopher  resemblances  to 
that  of  the  actor  as  exhibited  by  Droeshout,  and  Mr.  Booth, 
applying  to  them  the  Bertillon  system  of  measurement, 
found  them  to  be  exact  counterparts  of  each  other.  He  says : — 

Even  if  no  doubt  of  the  actor's  authorship  had  arisen,  it  would 
have  been  an  extraordinary  phenomenon  that  the  two  greatest 

^  Sir  Edwin  Durning  Lawrence,  Bart.,  LL.B.,  Bacon  is  Shakespearey  pp.  23 
et  seq.   New  York,  19 10. 

2  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare^  p.  287. 

*  William  Henry  Smith,  Esq.,  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  p.  39.  London, 
1857. 

249 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

men  of  letters  of  Elizabethan  times  should  be  found  to  have 
portraits  anatomically  identical.^ 

He  then  proceeds  to  demonstrate  the  accuracy  of  his  meas- 
urements by  patiently  overlaying  no  less  than  twenty-seven 
sections  of  the  two  faces,  and  showing  that  they  perfectly  co- 
incide with  the  parts  covered  without  materially  affecting  their 
expression. 

The  same  methods  have  been  employed  by  Professor  Hol- 
brook  in  his  treatment  of  the  portraits  of  Dante  with  un- 
questionable results.^ 

That  the  methods  of  measurement  employed  by  Mr.  Booth 
are  scientific,  any  one  can  convince  himself  by  studying  them 
as  the  writer  has  done;  it  would  be  better, though,  to  resort  to 
his  book,  and  follow  his  ingenious  exposition  of  his  subject. 
We  reproduce  by  the  kindness  of  his  publisher,  Mr.  W.  A. 
Butterfield,  eight  of  Mr.  Booth's  examples:  It  may  be  ob- 
jected that  faces  strikingly  similar  are  sometimes  seen.  This 
is  quite  true.  The  writer  in  his  studies  of  portraits  recalls 
several  such  instances,  perhaps  the  most  interesting  one  de- 
picted by  Morton  of  an  antique,  upon  which  he  remarks :  — 

After  twenty-five  hundred  years,  so,indelible  is  the  type,  every 
resident  of  Mobile  will  recognize  in  this  Chaldean  ef^gy  the  fac^ 
simile  portrait  of  one  of  their  city's  most  prominent  citizens.^ 

This  reference  is  to  Senator  Judah  P.  Benjamin.  But  such  an 
objection  cannot  be  sustained  by  the  actor's  friends  in  this 
case.  The  subjects  were  at  social  antipodes,  living  at  the  same 
time,  known  to  one  another  and  to  one  another's  friends, 
and  believed  by  numberless  partisans  to  be  authors  of  the 
same  works.  Surely  the  many  writers  with  whom  they  asso- 
ciated would  have  noted  a  resemblance  if  such  existed.    The 

^  William  Stone  Booth,  The  Droeshout  Portrait^  p.  3.  Boston,  191 1. 

2  R.  T.  Holbrook,  The  Portraits  of  Dante  from  Giotto  to  Rafael  London, 
1911. 

®  Samuel  George  Morton,  M.D.,  Types  of  Mankind^  p.  1 16.  Philadelphia, 
i860. 

250 


c-    c     c  c 

C  C      c  J 


THE   DROESHOUT   SHAKSPERE 

Overlaid  with  the  upper  half  of  Passe 's  Bacon. 
Compare  with  No.  6  for  line  from  lobe  of 
nose 


THE  DROESHOUT  SHAKSPERE 

Overlaid  with  upper  two  thirds  of  Passe's 
Bacon.  Compare  with  No.  5  for  shadow 
of  cheek  bone  and  lobe  of  nose 


THE   DROESHOUT   SHAKSPERE 

Overlaid  with  the  eye,  cheek,  and  hair  of 
Passe's  Bacon.  Note  cheek  line  and 
shadows 


PASSE'S  BACON 

Overlaid  with  oblique  sagittal  section  of  the  face 
of  Droeshout's  Shakspere.  Note  alignment  of 
eye,  nose,  and  mouth 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

question,  of  course,  arises  why  Droeshout  created  such  an 
effigy  of  the  actor.  The  only  answer  seems  to  be  that  the  man 
who  was  responsible  for  the  Folio  furnished  him  with  the  ma- 
terial for  this  tell-tale  portrait  which  the  artist  used  as  well  as 
his  meager  talents  permitted,  and  that  it  is  a  witty  experiment 
in  the  "deficiency  of  knowledge"  in  which  Bacon  took  so  deep 
an  interest.  Reminded  that  a  portrait  was  needed  for  the  Folio, 
how  apt  the  reply:  Take  my  Simon  Passe  and  give  it  to  Droes- 
hout ;  tell  him  to  leave  off  the  hat,  put  on  it  a  left-hand  coat, 
and  mark  a  black  line  in  front  of  the  ear  to  show  it  to  be  a 
mask.  His  deficiency  in  his  art  will  do  the  rest.  It  has  done 
more  than  hide  the  truth ;  it  has  shown  the  deficiency  in  criti- 
cal judgment,  for  many  posing  as  critics  have  neither  noticed 
the  coat  nor  the  mask,  and  have  written  books  to  prove  that 
it  was  the  only  original  portrait  of  the  actor  in  spite  of  these 
revealing  designs. 

We  may  well  close  this  branch  of  our  subject  by  quoting  a 
recent  German  critic,  —  "Der  Shakespeare-Dichter;  Wer 
War's?  und  Wle  sah  er  Aus?'' 

THE    INSCRIPTION    ON   THE   TOMBSTONE 

The  well-known  inscription  on  the  slab  covering  the  tomb 
has  also  been  changed,  and  the  changes  made  in  it  are  here 
given.  These  changes  should  excite  our  interest. 

It  should  be  noted,  to  avoid  suggestion  of  inaccuracy, 
that  slight  differences  exist  between  the  old  copyists,  perhaps 
the  fault  of  printers,  though  similar  instances  may  be  called 
to  mind  of  the  difficulty  experienced  by  experts  in  describing 
or  delineating  what  they  have  seen  and  carefully  studied. 
Visiting  the  Great  Pyramid,  and  interesting  himself  in  its  his- 
tory, the  writer  was  astonished  at  the  revelation  that  no  less 
than  seven  archaeologists,  who  had  measured  and  described 
with  painstaking  particularity  the  plain  stone  coffer  in  its 
mysterious  chamber,  differed  from  one  another  in  one  or  more 
particulars,  though  nothing  could  be  plainer. 

251 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  original  inscription  on  the  tombstone  was  doubtless 
copied  by  Dugdale  in  1636,^  the  year  his  book  was  written, 
though  not  published  till  twenty  years  later,  and  subsequently 
at  different  periods,  by  Steevens,  Malone,  and  Knight.  It  is 
not  remarkable  that  these  copyists  slightly  differ,  but  their 
differences  are  such  as  might  occur  in  transcribing  or  printing. 
In  this  case  they  are  perhaps  important.  The  following  is  the 
inscription  as  it  appeared  to  Samuel  Ireland,  composed  as  it 
was  described  "of  an  uncouth  mixture  of  large  and  small 
letters":  — 

Good  Frend  for  lefus  SAKE  forbeare 
To  dlGG  T-E  Duft  EncloAfed  HERe 
Blefe  be  TE  Man  J  fpares  TEs  Stones 
And  curft  be  He  f  moves  my  Bones. 

The  inscription  now  on  the  stone  is  quite  different,  and  is 
as  follows :  — 

Good    frend    for    Iesvs    sake    forbeare, 
to  digg  "he  dvst  encloased  heare: 

BlES-E    be    Y    MAN    Y    SPARES    "RES    STONES, 

T 
AND     CVRST     BE     HE     Y     MOVES     MY     BONES. 

The  question  naturally  arises.  When  did  the  change  take 
place  .f^  Besides  those  we  have  named,  it  was  printed  as  here 
shown  by  Samuel  Ireland  in  1795.  He  differs  from  Knight 
only  in  using  "small  and  capital  letters,''  Knight  using  only 
capitals,  large  and  small,  and  placing  a  period  in  the  middle 
and  at  the  end  of  the  last  word  in  the  second  line;  namely, 
HE.Re.   As  Knight  would  hardly  have  used  these  periods 

^  Cf.  George  Steevens,  The  Works  of  Shakespeare^  vol.  i,  p.  xix.  London,  181 1. 
Knight,  William  Shakspere,  A  Biography,  p.  542.  Sir  William  Dugdale,  Anti- 
quities of  Warwickshire.   1656. 

252 


IN   1788 


IX    1806 


THE  ^'BIRTHPLACE 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

arbitrarily,  we  must  conclude  that  they  were  originally  in  the 
word.  As  it  is  claimed  that  this  epitaph  contains  a  cipher,  we 
shall  refer  to  it  later.  ^ 

THE  HOUSE  AND  CHAMBER  IN  WHICH  THE  STRATFORD 
ACTOR  IS  SAID  TO  HAVE  BEEN  BORN 

O.  Halliwell-Phillipps  was  a  born  antiquary,  and  devoted 
his  life  to  his  favorite  profession.  He  went  to  Stratford  and 
remained  there  studying,  in  situ,  the  houses  connected  with 
the  actor.  He  even  procured  sketches  of  the  foundation  stones 
of  the  house  in  which  he  lived ;  penetrated  the  dim  and  cob- 
webbed  cellar  of  the  so-called  "birthplace"  in  Henley  Street, 
and  obtained  sketches  of  its  rude  walls,  determined  that  pos- 
terity should  lose  nothing  connected  with  the  man  he  adored. 
He  ransacked  records  and  conveyances  of  property  owned  by 
John  Shakspere,  tracing  minutely  the  various  conveyances  of 
portions  of  the  property,  and  such  changes  in  it  as  he  could 
find  recorded,  and  observes :  — 

It  is  certain  that  at  this  late  day  there  is  no  apartment  in  either 
the  Birth-Place  or  Wool-Shop  which  presents  exactly  the  same 
appearance  under  which  it  was  viewed  in  the  boyhood  of  the 
great  dramatist,  but,  unquestionably,  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  realization  of  such  a  memorial  is  to  be  found  in  the  cellar. 

And  he  proceeded  to  procure  sketches  of  every  portion  of  this, 
which  he  reproduced  in  his  painstaking  work.  Moreover,  he 
says :  — 

Throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  the  grave  stone 
and  effigy  appear  to  have  been  the  only  memorials  of  the  poet 
that  were  indicated  to  visitors,  and  no  evidence  has  been  dis- 
covered which  represents  either  the  Birth-Place  or  the  birth-room 
as  an  object  of  commercial  exhibition  until  after  the  traditions  re- 
specting them  are  known  to  have  been  current.  ^ 

^  Ignatius  Donnelly,  The  Cipher  in  the  Plays  and  on  the  Tombstone.  Minne- 
apolis, Minn.,  1899.  Picturesque  Views  on  the  Upper,  or  Warwickshire  Avo7i, 
p.  212.     London,  1795. 

*  Phillipps,  Outlines,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  386  et  seq.  The  italics  are  ours. 

253 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  writer  is  not  at  all  in  sympathy  with  those  who  have 
a  penchant  for  historic  doubts.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  an 
affectionate  regard  even  for  tradition,  which  often"  enshrines 
a  truth,  as  a  fragment  of  amber  does  a  fly,  but  he  can  but 
conclude,  and  to  this  conclusion  Phillipps  almost  unwittingly 
points  the  way,  that  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  the 
Stratford  actor  ever  saw  the  so-called  "birthroom,"  and  that 
there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  the  house  now  standing  is 
wholly  unlike  the  one  which  John  Shakspere  knew ;  most  cer- 
tainly it  is  if  it  underwent  as  great  changes  in  the  two  centuries 
previous  to  1769  as  in  the  seventy  years  after  that  date,  which 
the  accompanying  exhibits  reveal  to  us.  But  conflagrations 
are  to  be  considered,  and  they  were  frequent  in  Stratford,  as 
they  were  in  other  English  towns  in  the  past,  owing,  espe- 
cially, to  inflammable  roofs  of  thatch  as  well  as  other  causes. 
In  support  of  this  it  seems  well  to  quote  from  a  record  as  far 
back  as  161 8,  but  two  years  after  the  actor's  death,  a  report  of 
the  Privy  Council  to  the  Corporation  of  Stratford  with  regard 
to  a  late  "lamentable  loss,"  which  they  complained  had 

happened  by  casualty  of  fire  which  of  late  years  hath  been  very 
frequently  occasioned  by  means  of  thatched  cottages,  stacks  of 
straw,  and  such  like  combustible  stuff,  which  are  suffered  to  be 
erected  and  make  confusedly  in  most  of  the  principal  parts  of  the 
town  without  restraint.^ 

But  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  against  this  house  having  been 
the  birthplace  is  furnished  by  Knight,  who  says :  — 

The  Parish  of  Stratford,  then,  was  unquestionably  the  birth- 
place of  William  Shakspere.  But  in  what  part  of  Stratford  dwelt 
his  parents  in  the  year  1564  ?  It  was  ten  years  after  this  that  his 
father  became  the  purchaser  of  two  freehold  houses  in  Henley  Street, 
—  houses  which  still  exist  —  houses  which  the  people  of  Eng- 
land have  agreed  to  preserve  as  a  precious  relic  of  their  great 

^  George  Chalmers,  An  Apology  for  the  Believers  in  the  Shakespeares'  Papers, 
pp.  618  et  seq.  London,  1797. 

It  is  proper  to  remark  that  some  years  ago,  when  the  third  house  to  the  east 
of  the  wool  shop,  in  the  same  row,  was  under  repair,  charred  timbers  were  re- 
vealed, evidence  of  some  former  conflagration. 

254 


IN   1847 

THE   "BIRTHPLACE" 


IN    1834 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

brother.  Nine  years  before  William  Shakspere  was  born,  his  fa- 
ther had  also  purchased  two  copyhold  tenements  in  Stratford 
—  one  in  Greenhill  Street,  one  in  Henley  Street.  The  copyhold 
house  in  Henley  Street  purchased  in  1555  was  unquestionably 
not  one  of  the  freehold  houses  in  the  same  street  purchased  in 
1574.  As  he  purchased  two  houses  in  1555  in  different  parts 
of  the  town,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  occupied  both;  he  might 
not  have  occupied  either.  Before  he  purchased  the  two  houses 
in  Henley  Street  in  1574,^  he  occupied  fourteen  acres  of  meadow- 
land,  with  appurtenances,  at  a  very  high  rent;  the  property  is 
called  "Ingon"  meadow  in  "The  Close  Rolls," — -it  is  about  a 
mile  and  a  quarter  from  the  town  of  Stratford.  William  Shak- 
spere, then,  might  have  been  born  at  either  of  his  father's  copy- 
hold houses  in  Greenhill  Street,  or  in  Henley  Street ;  he  might  have 
been  born  at  Ingon. 

And  then  Knight,  as  usual,  loses  his  head,  yielding  judgment 
to  sentiment,  and  rhapsodizes  in  this  manner :  — 

Was  William  Shakspere,  then,  born  in  the  house  in  Henley 
Street  which  has  been  purchased  by  the  nation .f*  For  ourselves, 
we  frankly  confess  that  the  want  of  absolute  certainty  that  Shak- 
spere was  there  born,  produces  a  state  of  mind  that  is  something 
higher  and  pleasanter  than  the  conviction  that  depends  upon 
positive  evidence.  We  are  content  to  follow  the  popular  faith 
undoubtedly.  The  traditionary  belief  is  sanctioned  by  long  usage 
and  universal  acceptation.  The  merely  curious  look  in  reverent 
silence  upon  that  mean  room,  with  its  massive  joists  and  plas- 
tered walls,  firm  with  ribs  of  oak,  where  they  are  told  the  poet 
of  the  human  race  was  born.  Eyes  now  closed  on  the  world,  but 
have  left  that  behind  that  the  world  "will  not  willingly  let  die," 
have  gUstened  under  this  humble  roof,  and  there  have  been 
thoughts  unutterable  —  solemn,  confiding,  grateful,  humble,  — 
clustering  round  their  hearts  in  that  hour.  —  Disturb  not  the 
belief  that  William  Shakspere  firstsaw  the  light  in  this  venerated 
room.^ 

This  is  delirium,  and  strikingly  illustrates  the  frenzy  which 
actuates  the  disciples  of  the  new  Messianic  cult.  If  proofs 
as  strong  as  Holy  Writ  were  produced  they  would  fall  on 

*  The  dates  used  by  Knight  are  New  Style. 

2  Charles  Knight,  William  Shakspere,  A  Biography,  p.  3 1  et  seq.  New  York, 
i860. 

2SS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

deaf  ears.  One  hundred  and  fifty-three  years  had  passed  when 
the  Garrick  Jubilee  was  celebrated,  and  it  was  but  natural 
that  a  few  years  in  the  date  of  purchase  of  the  Henley  Street 
houses  should  be  overlooked  until  Malone  dug  it  out  of  the 
musty  old  records.  This  is  the  conclusion  he  reached  after 
discovering  the  fact :  — 

Consequently  the  precise  place  of  our  poet's  birth,  like  that  of 
Homer,  must  remain  undecided. 

He  also  remarks  that  his  father  held  — 

"Ingon,"  alias  "Ington  meadows,"  situated  at  a  short  distance 
fi:om  that  estate  which  his  son  afterwards  purchased. 

It  is  proper  to  remark  that  Phillipps,  basing  his  opinion 
upon  the  burial  of  a  John  (Malone  says  Jeames)  Shakspere 
at  Ingon,  September  25,  1589,  infers  that  it  was  not  the 
father  of  the  actor  who  held  this  estate.  These  opinions  are 
mentioned  though  of  no  special  importance,  as  they  do  not 
militate  against  the  fact  that  the  "precise  place"  of  the  ac- 
tor's birth  must  "remain  undecided." 

Of  course,  as  between  Phillipps  and  his  predecessors,  Ma- 
lone and  Knight,  on  a  question  of  precise  accuracy  in  tracing 
a  conveyance  or  tradition,  we  should  be  obliged  to  accept 
Phillipps ;  but  when  we  consider  the  grounds  upon  which  he 
yielded  to  the  persuasion  that  to  doubt  the  locality  of  the 
birthroom  "would  be  the  merest  foppery  of  scepticism,"  we 
are  again  unpleasantly  reminded  of  the  infectious  atmosphere 
of  Stratford.  Let  us  examine  the  evidence  he  presents.  He 
sets  out  as  follows :  — 

Upon  the  north  side  of  Henley  Street  is  a  detached  building, 
consisting  of  two  houses  annexed  to  each  other,  the  one  on  the 
West  having  been  known  from  time  immemorial  as  Shakespeare's 
Birth-PIace,  and  that  on  the  east,  a  somewhat  larger  one  which 
was  purchased  by  his  father  in  the  year  1556. 

Why  say  from  time  immemorial  when  the  earliest  date  of 
the  tradition  he  himself  says  was  1759,  the  date  of  Winter's 

256 


AT   PRESENT 


THE   "BIRTHPLACE" 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

plan  ?  The  western  house,  he  continues,  it  may  be  "  assumed  " 
was  the  birthplace,  and  the  eastern,  the  wool  shop,  the  "house 
purchased  by  him  in  1556."  In  support  of  this  statement  he 
presents  a  supposititious  plan  of  the  property.  Let  us  grant 
this  assumption  that  the  eastern  house  was  the  wool  shop,  and 
ask  when  the  western  house,  or  "  Birth-Place,"  was  purchased  ? 
The  reply  is  as  follows :  — 

John  Shakespeare  bought  two  houses  at  Stratford  in  this  year, 
1575;  but  it  is  not  known  in  what  part  of  the  town  they  were 
situated,  nor  whether  they  were  or  were  not  contiguous  to  each 
other  —  all  that  is  certain  in  the  matter  is  that  neither,  on  any 
supposition,  could  have  been  the  Wool  Shop,  but  it  is  possible 
that  one  of  them  was  the  Birth  Place. 

Here  he  finds  himself  in  a  dilemma,  and  in  this  helpless 
manner  struggles  to  escape  from  it:  — 

The  true  solution  of  a  biographical  question  is  to  be  found  in 
a  natural  hypothesis  which  completely  reconciles  the  tradi- 
tional and  positive  evidence.  It  is  known  that  John  Shakespeare 
became  the  owner  of  the  Birth-Place  at  some  unascertained 
period  before  1590. 

Why  not  say  1575  which  he  knew  to  be  the  date? 

And  if  we  assume  that  he  resided  there  from  the  time  of  his  arrival 
at  Stratford,  either  occupying  the  Wool  Shop,  as  well  as  annex- 
ing the  latter  in  1556,  all  known  difficulties  of  every  kind  imme- 
diately vanish. 

Of  course,  such  a  method  of  reasoning  will  settle  any  ques- 
tion of  any  nature,  but  calling  attention  to  a  fine  of  twelve- 
pence  being  levied  on  the  actor's  father  in  1552,  as  "one  of  the 
residents  of  Henley  Street,"  or  Hell  Lane  as  it  was  popularly 
called,  he  continues :  — 

Then  in  January,  1597,  we  have  his  own  authority  for  the  fact 
that  the  land  on  the  west  of  the  Birth-Place  was  at  that  time  in 
his  own  occupation. 

Of  course  it  was,  if  he  purchased  it  in  1575,  and  had  not  sold 
it  meanwhile ;  but  here  follows  this  extraordinary  admission: — 

257 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

This  is  the  only  evidence  of  the  kind  that  has  come  down  to 
us,  but  it  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  its  importance  in  de- 
ciding the  question  now  under  consideration,  the  value  of  a  tradi- 
tion being  immeasurably  enhanced  by  its  agreement  with  a  record 
that  could  not  have  been  known  to  any  of  its  narrators.^ 

He  then  offers  "the  local  Tradition  of  the  western  House 
being  the  Birth-Place,"  but,  evidently  realizing  the  weakness 
of  his  traditional  evidence,  he  fortifies  himself  by  saying  that 
it  "is  on  the  whole  of  a  satisfactory  character,"  and  antici- 
pating a  smile  at  the  use  of  the  words  "on  the  whole,"  which 
so  often  implies  doubt,  he  turns  crossly  upon  doubters,  and 
declares  that  his  evidence 

effectually  disposes  of  the  attempts,  some  of  them  dishonest  ones, 
to  circulate  the  unfounded  opinion  that  the  original  local  tradition 
indicated  neither  of  the  houses  on  the  present  Henley  Street 
estate. 

After  this  we  have  'Uhe  original  local  tradition,^'  and  be- 
come aware  that  the  reason  of  so  much  fuss  is  the  smallness 
of  the  egg.  This  is  it :  — 

The  two  buildings  are,  however,  collectively  mentioned  as  the 
"house  where  Shakespeare  was  born"  in  Winter's  plan  of  the 
town  of  1759  —  and  in  Greene's  view  which  was  engraved  in  1769. 

And  this  is  all.  The  only  tradition  "on  the  whole  of  a  satis- 
factory character,"  has  a  pedigree  beginning  one  hundred  and 
ninety-five  years  after  the  birth  of  the  actor,  and  to  carry  it 
back,  and  attach  it  to  a  house  of  which  the  date  of  purchase 
is  "assumed,"  and  present  it  to  us  as  evidence,  is  an  insult 
to  our  intelligence. 

To  sum  up  this  evidence,  John  Shakspere,  a  butcher  and 
wool  dealer  whose  father  lived  in  the  adjoining  parish  of  Snit- 
terfield,  was  fined  twelvepence  for  a  nuisance  in  Henley  Street 
in  1552.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  was  living  there  at  that 
time;  in  1555  his  name  was  not  on  the  roll  of  the  Corporation,  ^ 

1  PhilHpps,  Outlines^  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  25,  380,  383.  Cf.  Letter  to  Elze,  1888. 
*  Ihid.  vol.  II,  p.  215. 

258 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

but  it  is  a  fair  assumption  that  he  had  a  shop  there.  He  was 
not  married  until  1557,  but  he  had  purchased  the  year  before 
two  houses,  one  on  Greenhill,  the  other  on  Henley  Street. 
In  1575  he  purchased  two  other  houses;  location,  says  Phil- 
lipps,  is  undetermined,  but  "it  is  possible  that  one  of  them 
was  the  Birthplace":  Knight  says  "unquestionably  not." 
Phillipps's  opinion  rests  wholly  upon  tradition,  dating  from 
1759,  about  the  time  when  a  "Birthplace"  became  pecuni- 
arily valuable.  Any  one  who  examines  this  evidence,  if  he 
desires  to  get  at  a  fact  and  not  bolster  up  a  fiction,  must  cer- 
tainly decide  that  Phillipps  in  this  case  ignominiously  fails. 
Like  Knight  he  seems  to  have  concluded  "  that  want  of  abso- 
lute certainty"  was  "pleasanter  than  the  conviction  that  de- 
pends on  positive  evidence." 

While  the  record  evidence  forever  disposes  of  the  birth- 
place hoax,  we  will  venture  to  remark  that  it  seems  strange 
that  no  one  has  approached  the  subject  from  the  simple 
vantage-ground  of  reason ;  in  other  words,  is  it  reasonable  that 
John  Shakspere,  a  rapidly  rising  citizen  of  Stratford,  should 
take  his  bride,  a  rich  heiress  in  the  eyes  of  his  humble  towns- 
folk, to  the  close  and  confined  quarters  over  the  shop  where  he 
plied  his  trade,  malodorous  from  the  spoil  of  the  shambles, 
especially  from  wool  pelts,  the  effluvium  of  which  would  have 
been  unendurable  .^^  Imagine  John  Shakspere,  a  prosperous 
and  ambitious  young  man,  ignorant  and  pushing,  proudly 
standing  on  that  autumnal  day  of  1557  before  the  altar  with 
Mary  Arden,  a  particularly  good  matrimonial  catch,  and, 
after  receiving  the  congratulations  of  his  friends,  taking  her 
to  such  a  vile  place  as  we  have  described,  the  old  building  on 
Henley  Street,  where  he  had  been  fined  some  time  before  for 
maintaining  a  nuisance  by  accumulating  on  his  premises  the 
filthy  offal  of  his  trade.  It  is  unthinkable ;  but  this  is  what 
Stratfordians  have  tried  to  make  us  believe,  though  a  few 
months  before,  October  2,  1556,  he  had  purchased  a  house  on 
Greenhill  Street  ^^unum  tenementum  cum  gardino  et  croftOy 

259 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

cum  pertinencies,''  a  tenement  with  garden  and  croft  with  ap- 
purtenances, a  most  suitable  place  for  their  abode.  When, 
however,  the  tradition  was  started,  according  to  Phillipps,  in 
I759>  or  between  that  date  and  the  Garrick  Jubilee  ten  years 
later,  owing  to  a  demand  for  a  birthplace  for  "commercial 
exhibition,''  the  Greenhill  house  had  disappeared,  and  the 
two  tenements  on  Henley  Street,  purchased  in  1575  by  John 
Shakspere,  were  seized  upon,  and  to  their  joy  in  one  was 
found  a  chamber  which  was  just  what  they  wanted  for  a  birth- 
room.  But  Providence,  as  usual,  seems  to  have  intervened, 
and  the  schemers  made  the  fatal  blunder  of  selecting  the  very 
house  which  by  no  possibility  could  have  been  the  birthplace. 
Malone,  Knight,  and  Phillipps  knew  this,  but  even  Phillipps 
shrank  from  antagonizing  Stratford  public  opinion  by  oppos- 
ing it,  and  let  it  pass,  faithfully  recording  the  facts,  many 
enshrined  in  old  Latin  which  only  a  spendthrift  of  time  would 
meddle  with.  And  Lee,  too,  knows  the  truth  of  the  matter, 
and  this  is  how  he  gracefully  handles  it :  — 

Some  doubt  is  justifiable  as  to  the  ordinarily  accepted  scene 
of  his  birth.  Of  two  adjoining  houses  forming  a  detached  build- 
ing on  the  north  side  of  Henley  Street,  that  to  the  east  was  pur- 
chased by  John  Shakespeare  in  1556,  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that  he  owned  or  occupied  the  house  to  the  west  before  1575. 
Yet  this  western  house  has  been  known  since  1759  as  the  poet's 
birthplace,  and  a  room  on  the  first  floor  is  claimed  as  that  in 
which  he  was  born.  .  .  .  Much  of  the  Elizabethan  timber  and 
stonework  survives,but  a  cellar  under  the  "  birthplace  "  is  the  only 
portion  which  remains  as  it  was  at  the  date  of  the  poet's  birth.  ^ 

We  cannot  even  indorse  the  overconfident  statement  by  Lee 
that  some  of  the  "Elizabethan  timber"  and  "stone  work'' 
of  the  buildings  used  by  John  Shakspere  in  1575  survive.  It  is 
much  more  reasonable  to  believe  that  their  walls  were  of  mud, 
and  roofs  of  thatch,  such  as  Phillipps  says  was  the  common  type 
of  Stratford  houses.  The  buildings  purchased  by  the  authori- 
ties in  1848  had  been  used  during  a  considerable  period  for  an 

*  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  9. 
260 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

inn,  and  it  is  much  more  probable  that  eariier  structures  had 
yielded  to  the  changes  of  time,  or  one  of  the  many  fires  from 
which  the  Httle  town  had  suffered,  than  that  they  were  the 
original  houses  purchased  in  1575.  Wheeler  tells  us  of  one  of 
these  fires,  two  years  before  the  actor's  death,  which  swept 
away  fifty-four  dwelling-houses  and  other  buildings,  and 
threatened  the  destruction  of  the  town.^ 

The  belated  acknowledgment  by  Lee,  forced  by  the  trouble- 
some publication  of  abstracts  of  titles  of  conveyance  by 
Phillipps,  that  the  so-called  "Birth-Place"  is  not  that  of  the 
actor,  though  the  fact  had  been  known  to  "literary  anti- 
quaries" for  a  long  time,  will  surprise  visitors  to  Stratford, 
who  have  not  been  aware  of  the  truth.  But  should  it  continue 
to  be  called  so?  Is  it  right  to  continue  harrowing  the  sensibili- 
ties of  sentimental  people  who,  as  Knight  says,  "with  thoughts 
unutterable  stand  with  glistening  eyes  beneath  this  humble 
roof"  ?  Verily  the  presidency  of  any  society  which  sanctions 
such  a  fiction  for  "commercial  exhibition"  is  no  sinecure. 

It  is  probable  that  had  Phillipps  lived  to  see  the  proofs 
adduced  since  his  death  of  the  unworthiness  of  the  actor's 
authorial  claims,  he  would  have  accepted  them.  Even  with 
all  his  loyalty  to  the  Stratford  superstition,  he  did  not  die  in 
the  odor  of  sanctity.  Obsessed  by  a  delusion,  he  had  wasted 
many  of  the  best  forty  years  of  his  life  in  the  hope  of  wresting 
from  obscure  scraps  of  writing  something  to  give  substance  to 
the  phantom  of  his  pursuit,  and  his  years  of  labor  had  resulted 
in  rescuing  from  decay  a  mass  of  musty  records  relating  to  the 
town,  worthless  to  any  real  biographer  of  its  mythical  saint. 
Of  him,  he  was  obliged  to  declare  that  "  The  Corporation  rec^ 
ords  include  only  twelve  documents  in  which  the  great  dramatist 
himself  is  mentioned''  ^  We  have  enumerated  these,  and  have 
seen  that  they  reveal  nothing  more  than  that  he  was  engaged 
in  petty  trade  in  his  native  town  begun  not  long  after  the 

*  Wheeler's  History  of  Stratford,  p.  15. 

*  The  Stratford  Records  and  the  Shakespeare  Autotypes^  p.  53.    London,  1887, 

261 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

purchase  of  his  house  there.  PhiUipps's  researches,  however,  re- 
vealing that  by  no  possibility  could  he  have  been  born  in  the 
so-called  "Birthplace,"  was  a  blow  at  Stratford's  financial 
industry,  and  he  was  regarded  as  a  meddler.  The  result  was 
mutual  recriminations,  and  Phillipps  closed  his  part  of  it  in 
1887  in  a  book  prefaced  with  an  apt  Oriental  story.  In  it  he 
tells  us  that  ^Hhe  proceedings  of  the  oligarchy  in  all  literary  mat-- 
ters  connected  with  the  town  have  been  of  the  most  ludicrous  de- 
scription^^ and  that  ^^  Stratford-on-Avon^  under  the  management 
of  its  oligarchy,  instead  of  being,  as  it  ought  to  be,  the  center  of 
Shakespeare  biographical  research,  has  become  the  seat  of  Shake- 
spearian charlatanry y  ^  This  is  as  strong  language  as  ours, 
and  how  far  he  might  have  gone  in  his  disclosures  we  do  not 
know,  for  this  best  of  the  Stratfordian  devotees  died  a  few 
months  later,  and  the  Baconian  cause  lost  the  chance  of  secur- 
ing a  valuable  convert. 

Before  closing  this  branch  of  our  subject,  attention  should 
be  called  to  the  fraudulent  attempt  to  exploit  New  Place,  the 
"poet's''  residence.  It  became  known  that  no  picture  of  it 
had  been  preserved,  and  another  Stratford  "poet,"  as  Knight 
designates  Jordan,  produced  one  and  sent  it  to  Malone,  who 
replied  that  "Mr.  Malone  would  be  glad  to  have  Shakespeare's 
house  on  the  same  scale  as  Sir  Hugh  Clopton's,"  and  ap- 
proved having  the  Shakspere  arms  over  the  door.  "And  yet," 
remarks  Knight,  "  this  man  was  the  most  bitter  denouncer  of 
the  Ireland  forgeries ;  and  shows  up,  as  he  had  a  just  right  to 
do,  the  imposition  of  *Masterre  Irelande's  House'  with  two 
coats-of-arms  beneath  it."  ^ 

Malone  published  the  picture  as  genuine,  with  the  arms, 
and  "poet"  Jordan  in  his  pride  showed  Malone's  correspond- 
ence to  "a  gentleman."  Questioned  upon  the  source  of  the 
picture,  Jordan  mentioned  an  old  plan.  At  this  point  the 
literary  antiquary  came  in,  found  the  plan,  discovered  that 

^   The  Stratford  Records  and  the  Shakespeare  Autotypes,  p.  53.     London,  1887. 
2  Knight,  William  Shakspere,  A  Biography,  p.  498. 

262 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

the  house  which  Jordan  used  as  the  model  for  his  picture  was 
on  the  other  side  of  the  street  from  New  Place,  and  had  been 
liberally  adorned  with  imposing  gables  and  other  attractions. 
Exposure  followed  and  Jordan  confessed  his  part  in  the  fraud. 

THE    SEAL   RING 

This  ring  is  said  to  have  been  found  in  1810  in  a  field  near 
Stratford  Churchyard  by  a  laborer's  wife,  who,  before  selling 
it,  immersed  it  in  a  bath  of  aquafortis  "to  remove  the  stains 
of  age."  It  is  of  gold,  and  bears  the  initials,  "  W.  S."  It  was 
shown  to  Malone,  who  suggested  that  it  might  have  belonged 
to  Mr.  William  Smith,  an  ancient  resident  of  Stratford,  and 
he  was  told  that  a  device  of  Smith  had  been  seen  which  was  a 
skull  and  crossbones.  To  this  Malone,  who 
had  had  a  wide  experience  in  spurious  relics 
of  the  actor,  judiciously  replied  that  it  was 
unlikely  that  Smith  had  two  devices,  and 
that  "it  evidently  belonged  to  a  person  in 
a  very  respectable  class  of  society."    This 

,  -  I'll  THE  SEAL  RING 

rmg,  however,  has  no  device,  the  letters 
being  united  by  lines  in  a  way  quite  common  at  the  time 
the  ring  was  found,  as  well  as  before  and  since.  It  has  been 
adduced,  as  proof  of  the  genuineness  of  this  relic,  that  the 
words,  "and  seal,"  in  the  actor's  will,  were  stricken  out  of 
the  formula,  "  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and  seal,'  which 
would  not  have  been  done  if  he  had  possessed  one  at  the  time ; 
ergo,  it  had  been  lost.  Various  other  speculations  have  been 
advanced  to  connect  this  ring  with  the  actor,  all  of  which  are 
ridiculously  fallacious.  Strangely  enough,  the  discovery  was 
made  that  a  man  by  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare,  a 
name,  as  we  know,  not  uncommon  in  the  vicinity,  was  in  the 
field  on  the  day  it  was  found.  No  attempt,  however,  seems 
to  have  been  made  to  connect  him  with  the  find.  Of  course 
many  people  entitled  to  the  use  of  the  initials  "W.  S."  have 
visited  Stratford  annually  for  a  long  time,  and  it  would  not 

263 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

be  strange  if  one  lost  a  seal  ring;  but  the  whole  story  is  strik- 
ingly like  tales  of  other  "discoveries"  known  to  be  spurious, 
and  is  entitled  to  the  same  measure  of  credence.  To  show  how 
little  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  such  evidence,  a  deed  of  a 
house  on  "HenlyStrete,'' near  the  house  of  John  Shakspere, 
dated  in  1573,  when  the  actor  was  seven  years  old,  has  been 
unearthed  by  some  "literary  antiquary,"  bearing  upon  it  a 
seal  with  the  same  initials,  "  W.  S.  entwined  with  a  true  lover's 
knot."  Had  this  deed  borne  a  date  about  the  time  of  the 
actor's  marriage,  books  would  have  been  written  not  only  to 
prove  that  the  seal  was  his,  kindly  loaned  to  a  friend  on  the 
occasion,  but  as  unassailable  proof  that  his  marriage  was  an 
ideal  one,  even  though  some  of  his  biographers  have  inexcus- 
ably painted  poor  Anne  Hathaway  as  having  blighted  his  life. 

THE    FURNESS   GLOVES 

Of  the  same  character  are  the  gloves  given  by  John  Ward 
to  his  brother  actor,  David  Garrick,  "On  the  closing  day  of 

May,  1769,"  with  the  statement 
that  he  received  them  when  at 
Stratford  in  1746  from  a  person, 
"William  Shakespeare  by  name, 
— a  glazier  by  trade."  Ward,  in 
a  letter  to  Garrick,  said  that  "  the 
father  of  him  and  our  Poet  were 
brothers'  children."  It  would  be 
interesting  to  know  the  birth  date 
of  the  father,  who  by  the  state- 
ment of  the  glazier  was  the  actor's 

THE  FURNESS  GLOVES  r      ^  •  i  11 

nrst  cousm,  and  supposably  a  con- 
temporary. As  the  actor  was  born  in  1564,  a  hundred  and 
eighty-two  years  lay  between  that  event  and  the  date  of  this 
transaction.  It  is  also  noticeable  that  a  William  Shakespeare 
—  not  this  one,  for  Ward  said  that  he  died  about  1749  — 
turned  up  in  the  ring  episode,  a  strange  coincidence  cer- 

264 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

tainly ;  besides,  these  gloves  were  given  Garrick  on  the  eve 
of  his  Stratford  Jubilee,  which  gave  a  stimulus  to  the  ingenu- 
ity of  relic  fabricators  unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  art, 
causing  everything  in  the  nature  of  a  relic  for  many  years 
after  to  be  discredited. 

The  very  association  of  these  gloves  with  Garrick  should 
have  been  sufficient  to  discredit  them;  yet  Furness  prized 
them  so  highly  that  once,  when  a  gentleman  ventured  to  slip 
his  hand  into  one  of  them,  he  could  not  refrain  from  an  expres- 
sion of  horror  at  the  profanation  of  so  sacred  a  relic.  Such  an 
exhibition  of  faith  in  an  old  pair  of  gloves,  the  history  of 
which  begins  with  an  enthusiastic  and  volatile  actor  who  had 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  proof  to  substantiate  their  origin,  is 
a  psychological  marvel. 

To  conclude,  there  is  but  one  authentic  relic  of  the  Stratford 
actor  in  existence,  namely,  his  will.  Even  the  "silver  gilt 
bowl,"  no  doubt  the  most  cherished  heirloom  of  the  family, 
passed  from  sight  centuries  ago.  If  the  premises  in  Henley 
Street  were  the  site  of  John  Shakspere's  dwelling  after  pur- 
chase in  1574-75,  we  have  shown  the  improbability  of  the 
buildings  being  the  same.  They  are  certainly  old,  and  have 
massive  oak  timbers,  as  houses  built  long  after  had;  but 
how  old  ^  If  built  a  century  or  more  after  the  actor's  death, 
they  would  appear  as  they  now  do,  battered  and  weather- 
stained. 

But  if  we  admit  that  they  are  these  houses,  does  this  help 
the  matter?  We  have  seen  that  PhiUipps  was  forced  to  ad- 
mit that  "neither  on  any  supposition  could  have  been  the 
Wool  Shop,"  though  yielding  to  a  tradition  originating 
nearly  two  centuries  after  the  purchase  by  John  Shakespeare, 
he  quahfied  his  assertion  by  saying,  "it  is  possible  that  one 
of  them  was  the  Birth-Place." 

This  is  a  surprising  admission  by  one  realizing  his  respon- 
sibility as  an  author,  and  was  made  only  to  avoid  a  vital 
blow  at  the  most  important  of  Stratford  myths. 

26s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

All  historical  students  agree  that  to  establish  an  historical 
fact  documentary  evidence  is  requisite,  though  they  always 
give  respectful  attention  to  well-authenticated  tradition;  but 
no  evidence  or  tradition  to  establish  the  authenticity  of  the 
Stratford  relics  exists,  with  the  sole  exception  of  the  will, 
so  potential  are  the  agencies  which  Time  employs  to  destroy 
the  works  of  man. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  the  "  Shakespeare  Library"  is  the  most 
shameless  display  of  impertinence  in  this  museum  of  fraudu- 
lent relics.  True  it  is  composed  of  such  books  as  the  real 
author  of  the  dramas  must  have  known,  but  they  have  been 
picked  up  at  second-hand  as  occasion  offered,  and  not  one  of 
them  is  associated  with  the  Stratford  actor;  yet  nine  tenths  of 
the  pilgrims  who  visit  this  strange  shrine  look  upon  this  puerile 
exhibit  as  genuine. 

How  can  we  regard  this  flagrant  deception  but  as  out- 
Barnuming  our  great  showman,  aptly  expressed  in  the  graphic 
vernacular," the  people  like  to  be  humbugged  and  there's 
dollars  in  it."  Verily,  rideret  Heraclitus. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  say,  but  nevertheless  true,  that  the 
twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand  people  who  annually  visit 
Stratford  have  exhibited  to  them  relics  as  mythical  as  the 
bones  of  the  ten  thousand  virgins  of  Cologne,  and  the  pots  in 
which  the  water  was  turned  to  wine  at  the  Galilean  marriage 
feast. 

THE    IRELAND   FORGERIES 

Let  us  take  leave  of  this  remarkable  exhibition  of  deception 
and  credulity  by  a  final  glance  at  these  forgeries. 

Samuel  Ireland,  an  engraver  and  author,  was  in  1794  living 
prosperously  in  London  with  his  two  daughters  and  son,  Wil- 
liam Henry,  and,  being  an  enthusiastic  devotee  of  the  Stratford 
actor,  made  with  his  son,  then  seventeen  years  of  age,  a  pil- 
grimage to  Stratford.  After  the  Garrick  Jubilee  of  1769,  the 
literary  world  began  to  awaken  to  the  strange  fact  that  no 

266 


MYTHICAL  RELICS 

relics  of  the  actor  existed.  People  went  there  expecting  to  see 
the  manuscripts  of  the  famous  works  in  his  own  handwriting 
with  the  traditionary  absence  of  blots ;  the  family  portrait,  and 
other  relics ;  and  were  disappointed.  It  soon  became  impressed 
upon  the  minds  of  the  covetous  that  here  was  a  demand  with- 
out supply.  One  or  two  interesting  documents  conveniently 
turned  up,  and  gossip  had  it  that  other  valuable  documents 
had  been  carelessly  destroyed,  which  suggested  that  there 
might  be  others  which  ought  to  be  rescued  from  a  similar 
fate. 

Ireland,  like  many  another,  made  his  pilgrimage  a  hunting 
affair,  but  bagged  no  game.  The  son's  imagination,  for  he  was 
a  genius  quite  the  peer  of  Chatterton,  was  impressed  by  what 
he  saw  and  heard,  and,  to  the  surprise  of  competitors  and 
the  admiration  of  his  father,  he  found  a  whole  copy  of  **  Lear,*' 
a  fragment  of  "Hamlet,"  and  some  other  scraps  of  interest. 
He  was  an  artist  of  the  first  water,  and  understood  the  proper 
point  of  pause.  The  delighted  father  called  in  some  of  the 
noted  experts  of  the  day,  who  pronounced  them  priceless.  Ex- 
citement ran  high,  and  when  the  young  man,  who  was  in  a 
law  office,  took  his  vacation,  visiting  a  castle  in  the  country, 
and  returning  with  two  whole  plays  and  a  variety  of  docu- 
ments of  which  he  made  a  Christmas  present  to  his  father, 
his  fame  was  equal  to  his  father's  pride  in  him.  There  was 
in  the  collection  even  Southampton  correspondence^  the  gla- 
mour of  which  still  affects  biographers,  and  a  letter  from 
the  actor  to  "Anna  Hatherrewaye,  with  a  lock  of  the  poet's 
reddish  hair  fastened  thereto  with  a  strip  of  parchment"  — 
and  these  lines  written  by  her  loving  husband :  — 

Is  there  inne  heavenne  aught  more  rare 
Thanne  thou  sweete  Nymphe  of  Avon  fayre? 
Is  there  onne  Earthe  a  Manne  more  trewe 
Thanne  Willy  Shaksperare  is  toe  you  ? 

In  fact,  a  collection  could  not  have  been  better  devised  to 
convince  even  skeptics  than  this  created  by  a  mere  youth. 

267 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

One  of  the  plays,  "Vortigerne,"  was  put  upon  the  stage 
April  2,  1796.  So  eager  were  people  for  tickets  that  many 
remained  in  line  all  night,  and  the  next  day,  rather  than 
miss  its  first  representation.  Young  Ireland  was  behind  the 
scenes,  "buzzing  like  a  bee,"  apparently  near  a  nervous 
breakdown  with  excitement;  Kemble  and  Mrs.  Jordan  had 
principal  parts,  and  all  progressed  well  until  Kemble,  con- 
vinced that  he  was  being  deceived,  probably  by  what  the  lad 
said  or  did,  repeated  a  line  in  the  play,  "When  this  solemn 
mockery  is  over,"  with  such  an  intonation  of  voice  that  the 
audience  took  fire,  and  by  one  of  those  sudden  changes  of 
sentiment  howled  their  approbation.  In  the  uproar  that  fol- 
lowed, young  Ireland  lost  his  head,  and  the  mischief  was  done. 
As  a  result  of  these  remarkable  forgeries  he  lost  his  position, 
was  disowned  by  his  father,  and  after  a  life  of  forty  years 
subjected  to  want  and  hardship,  came  to  his  sad  end.  Yet 
Ireland's  role  is  still  being  enacted  on  a  stage  with  the  mod- 
ern advantages  of  effective  scenery,  electric  illumination,  and 
stirring  clamor  of  accomplished  claqueurs. 


No.  I,  from  a  deed  in  the  British        ^^^^^H^V^  {^l 
Museum.  'fff//t^tf 

No.  2,  from  a  mortgage  in  the  Guildhall.  ^^  %Pl^j 

No.  3,  from  the  will. 


3     !^i^^p-nj^ 


tion  in  the  office  of  the        fW^vfi*^^  (^^M^*^^ 

Public  Records.  ^/ ^            ^:::^ 

No.    5,    from    a  ^         /v^    /       ^  X 

volume  of  Mon-  /f  //   ,  /    rn  ^     /      /x-     /  ^  v- 

taigne's   Essays  //  /  /^  '' ">  ^^^-ff^^  i  ^ 

in     the    British  '  / 

Museum.  /  r 


No.   6,   from    an    acknow- 
ledged forgery  of  Ireland. 


l/t^ 


Nos.  7  and  8,  the  two  last  signatures  from  the  will  which  we  believe 
to  have  been  written  with  a  guided  hand. 


VII 

A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 
THE    SIGNATURES 

We  have  mentioned  the  strange  fact  that  no  writing  of  the 
actor  is  known  to  be  in  existence  unless  we  accept  the  signa- 
tures to  his  will,  three  in  number,  two  on  a  deed  and  mortgage, 
and  one  recently  brought  to  light  by  Professor  Wallace  affixed 
to  a  deposition  in  the  office  of  the  Public  Records  in  Lon- 
don, which  has  awakened  a  lively  interest  amongst  students 
because  his  ability  to  write  his  name  has  been  challenged. 
Perhaps  we  ought  to  say  that  Phillipps  has  suggested  that  the 
words,  "By  me,"  preceding  the  name  attached  to  the  will 
are  those  of  the  testator,  and  to  mention  a  signature  in  a  copy 
of  Montaigne's  "Essays"  undoubtedly  spurious,  but  accepted 
by  some  devotees  because,  perhaps,  it  is  more  presentable  than 
others. 

Any  one  unacquainted  with  late  sixteenth  and  early  seven- 
teenth century  script,  and  especially  with  the  professional 
court  hand,  should  avoid  discussing  the  subject,  and  unless  the 
present  writer  had  had  a  long  experience  in  the  study  of 
manuscripts  of  this  period,  he  would  leave  the  question  of  the 
actor's  chirography  undisturbed.  Feeling  it  possible,  how- 
ever, to  contribute  toward  the  elucidation  of  the  subject  he 
ventures  to  discuss  it. 

There  are  four  signatures  of  the  actor  which  we  claim  to 
be  valid,  and  but  four.  These  are  Nos.  i,  2,  3,  4,  as  shown 
on  opposite  page.  The  documents  themselves  are  in  the 
handwriting  of  law  clerks  or  scriveners.  To  these  we  add  his 
spurious  signatures,  Nos.  S,  6,  7,  and  8,  the  two  last  being 
signatures  from  the  will  which  we  believe  to  have  been 
written  with  a  guided  hand. 

269 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

It  is  noticeable  that  in  documents  Nos.  i  and  2  the  word 
signed"  is  omitted  and  only  the  word  "sealed"  used,  a 

fact  which  has  raised 
in  some  minds  the  har- 
rowing doubt  as  to  the 
^  ^  %  ability  of  the  grantee 


^      w^       ^' 


and  mortgagor  to  write 
his  name.     The  fact, 
1  CU    t^^j  ^hat  the  name  in 

both  documents  is  ab- 
JTS  >fip  ^T'  breviated  is  suggestive. 


41k,  A, 


C^       (^     ^p.  8j.  Sz.  ^? 


J      J 


^       1? 


Solicitors  were  so   accus- 
tomed to  have  clients  who 
could  not  sign  their  names 
A  jS  •      to  papers  that  they  were 

*  •  ^     constantlywriting  their  sig- 

natures for  them,  usually 
with  a  mark  as  is  done  now ; 
but  a  genuine  signature, 
hough  abbreviated,  would 
pass  muster.  The  differ- 
ences in  the  signatures  of 

SEPARATE  LETTERS  IN  THE  FOUR  ^.Up    c\cfnr   h;i<5    XYiTiAe    SOTTIP 

AUTHENTIC  SIGNATURES  ^nc  actor  nas  maae  some 

X,  as  Malone  saw  the  preceding  S.  .  beUeVC  that  thcy  WCrC  UOt 

y.  as  Steevens  traced  the  S  in  first  signature  to  will.  -^-.'^^.p^  U^  ^Up   camP  h;inH 

2.  a  suggestion  of  its  original  form.    Note  the  last  S  Wniten  Dy   tllC   bdlllC  liailU. 

in  the  line,  from  Sadler's  signature  as  a  witness  to  will.  Tr-.r£»n      \/[  r        (^PrviliQ        ^ 

In  the  third  a  the  stroke  which  makes  it  resemble  the  i->VCll      iVll.      VJClVdia,      d 

letter  A  was  caused  by  a  slip  of  the  clumsy  hand,  as  was  StratfordiaU,      makcS      this 

the  fourth.  ' 

Startling  admission:  — 
Looking  at  them  from  the  point  of  view  of  character,  nobody 
would  say  that  they  were  from  the  same  pen,  and  written  within 
a  short  time  of  one  another. 

Gervais,  however,  suggests  no  solution  for  this  disparity,  and 
without  explanation  concludes  them  to  be  genuine  signatures 

270 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

of  the  actor.  Mr.  Lawrence  informs  us  that  the  signatures  to 
the  deed  and  mortgage  have  been  discredited  by  officials  of 
the  institutions  where  they  are  lodged.  The  writer,  however, 
must  agree  with  Mr.  Gervais,  that  they  are  genuine,  and 
can  see  no  reason  why  he  should  pronounce  them  radically 
unlike. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  signature  (No.  5)  in  the  volume 
of  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne's  "Essays"  of  1603,  and 
that  in  the  office  of  the  Public  Records. 

The  name  in  the  "Essays"  is  written  on  one  of  the  blank 
leaves  of  the  volume  among  a  number  of  quotations  from 
Latin  authors  which  are  in  a  handwriting  quite  unlike  that 
of  the  signature.  Mr.  Gervais,  who  has  already  been  quoted, 
battles  valorously  for  the  genuineness  of  this  signature,  but, 
unfortunately,  like  everything  connected  with  the  Stratford 
actor,  it  is  a  fraud  too  glaring  to  receive  credence.  In  the  first 
place,  it  differs  radically  from  the  four  genuine  signatures,  and 
has  all  the  ear-marks  of  a  none  too  ingenious  forgery  of  a  like 
character  to  the  Ireland  forgery  (No.  6) ;  besides,  it  is  imposing 
too  great  a  strain  upon  our  credulity  to  ask  us  to  believe  that 
for  two  centuries  this  book  could  have  remained  in  the  hands 
of  bookmen,  —  for  else  it  had  perished,  —  and  a  signature,  so 
very  important  and  valuable  as  this  purported  to  be,  pass 
unnoticed.  Phillipps  is  the  best  authority  we  can  quote,  for 
while  an  ardent  lover  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  and  a 
thorough  believer  that  the  Stratford  actor  was  their  author, 
he  always  acts  on  the  presumption  that  it  is  better  for  his 
client  to  have  even  unpleasant  facts  affecting  him  fairly 
stated  by  a  friend,  than  to  have  them  concealed  to  be  exposed 
by  an  enemy.   Respecting  this  signature  he  says :  — 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  many  alleged  autographs  of 
Shakespeare  have  been  exhibited;  but  forgeries  of  them  are  so 
numerous,  and  the  continuity  of  design,  which  a  fabricator  can- 
not readily  produce  in  a  long  document,  is  so  easy  to  obtain  in 
a  mere  signature,  that  the  only  safe  course  is  to  adopt  none  as 
genuine  on  internal  evidence. 

271 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

This  signature  did  not  come  to  light  until  1780,  which  was 
after  the  publication  by  Steevens  of  a  facsimile  of  the  actor's 
autograph.  Soon  after  its  appearance  Shakspere  autographs 
began  to  appear,  often  on  the  fly  leaves  of  old  books,  one 
turning  up  on  a  copy  of  Bacon's  "Essays"  forged  by  the 
Stratford  rhymester  Jordan,  who  died  in  1789.  Whether  this 
is  his  handiwork,  it  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  determine,  but 
that  it  is  a  forgery  there  should  be  no  doubt.  Phillipps  sor- 
rowfully gives  it  up  "with  great  reluctance,  for  it  would  be 
well  to  know  that  there  exists  one  work,  at  least,  which  the 
great  poet  handled." 

Of  course  forgeries  of  the  actor's  name  were  varied  to  avoid 
the  suspicion  of  being  copies,  and  the  facsimile  of  the  forged 
signature  by  Ireland  is  no  more  unlike  it  than  the  two  last 
so-called  genuine  ones  to  the  will. 

Mr.  Gerv^ais  has  carefully  transcribed  the  quotations  which 
appear  on  the  blank  pages  of  the  old  volume  of  Montaigne, 
and  parallelled  them  with  passages  in  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works.  The  present  writer  has  already  done  the  same,  for 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  author  of  these  works  was  a 
close  student  of  Montaigne.  Gervais  also  gives  a  facsimile 
page  from  Bacon's  "  Promus,"  in  order,  it  would  almost  seem, 
to  intimidate  partisans  of  Bacon  from  claiming  that  the  hand- 
writing is  his,  for  jotting  down  such  quotations  for  future  use 
is  wonderfully  suggestive  of  that  great  author.  In  this  con- 
nection Mr.  Gervais  says,  — 

Having  .  .  .  established  a  prima  facie  case,  and  shifted  the 
burden  of  proof  on  to  my  opponents,  who,  I  hope,  will  not  spare 
me,  I  shall  show,  by  a  comparison  of  the  various  specimens  of 
handwriting,  that  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  and,  in  fact,  every 
reason  to  believe,  that  the  writings  in  the  Montaigne  came  from 
the  same  hand  that  penned  the  five  legal  signatures,  and,  in  any 
case,  not  from  that  of  Bacon.  ^ 

Mr.  Gervais  permits  his  enthusiasm  to  urge  him  beyond 

the  pale  of  safety ;  indeed,  it  is  surprising  that  with  the  quota- 

^  Francis  P.  Gervais,  Shakespeare  not  Bacon,  p.  4.  London,  1901. 

272 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

tions  on  the  blank  leaves  of  the  Montaigne,  and  a  page  of 
the  "Promus''  before  him,  he  could  so  positively  declare  that 
they  were  unlike,  and  that  the  quotations  were  in  the  same 
handwriting  as  the  Shakspere  signature  which  they  are  so 

^^'fHi     O-ryfiO      oclaCv^    VOn.cL    6o*i^i   Qlc^U^ 
Jet.    AA^caJu 


•rrteci 


Lj  /^fHi     ^iffm      €,    i \/h' 9H4f  ^'s^         c^  j^di'€,9^*'^' 


CeiLf^MiM    4^  A«vfW<«f  J^iunl    *i^>/«4f  -  ^^ 

^/j^'^nK  «;   ir^t^u^  A^^^  ^/T^  '^  ''^ 

ALTERNATE  LINES  FROM  BACON'S  PROMUS  AND  MONTAIGNE'S  ESSAYS.     1603. 

wholly  unlike.  We  will  dismiss  this  signature  with  the  simple 
remark  that  its  presence  greatly  enhanced  the  pecuniary  value 
of  the  book.  It  sold  for  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds, 
and  is  to  be  classed  among  other  forgeries  of  a  like  nature.  It 
is  noticeable,  amusingly  so,  that  since  it  is  more  like  a  re- 
spectable signature  than  others  it  is  being  frequently  used  by 
partisans  of  the  Stratford  myth  in  their  books,  and  a  plausible 

273 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

article  has  been  written  to  prove  that  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  book  without  the  signature  would  equal  its  cost,  a  wholly- 
gratuitous  assumption. 

The  quotations,  Mr.  Gervais  says,  are  not  in  Bacon's 
handwriting.  Why  should  he  have  thought  of  Bacon  in  con- 
nection with  the  book  unless  they  were  strongly  suggestive 
of  him  ?  To  show  that  they  were  not  only  of  the  same  nature 
as  the  "  Promus,"  but  that  the  chirography  is  Bacon's,  we  have 
reproduced  them  in  alternate  lines.  (See  p.  273.)  In  doing 
this  it  should  be  remarked  that  few  men  write  always  pre- 
cisely the  same.  We  should  also  remember  that  Bacon  wrote 
two  distinctly  different  hands ;  one  the  flowing  court  hand, 
the  other  the  so-called  Italian  hand  which  looks  like  copper- 
plate, and  which  at  times  exerted  an  influence  upon  the 
former.  His  correspondence,  too,  at  different  periods  of  life 
shows  the  most  marked  differences,  as  the  exhibits  here  given 
prove. 

Certainly  this  comparison  will  raise  in  every  mind  the 
pregnant  question,  Was  not  this  volume  of  Montaigne 
bearing  apothegms  for  future  use,  for  which  Gervais  has 
found  parallels  in  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  really  the 
property  of  Bacon?  The  consensus  of  opinion  is  likely  to 
be  that  Mr.  Gervais's  argument  spoils  the  defendant's 
case. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  genuine  signature  (No.  4),  dis- 
covered by  Professor  Wallace,  of  the  University  of  Nebraska, 
who  says,  with  the  familiar  abandon  of  Knight,  Gervais,  and 
other  devotees  of  the  Stratford  actor:  — 

I  have  the  honor  to  present  Shakespeare  as  a  man  among 
men.  He  is  here  as  unmythical  as  the  face  that  speaks  living 
language  to  you  across  the  table  or  up  out  of  the  jostling  street. 
He  is  as  real  and  as  human  as  you  and  I  who  answer  with  word, 
or  touch,  or  look.'^ 

^  Wallace,  "New  Shakespeare  Discoveries,"  Harper's  Magazine^  March, 
1910. 

274 


^        I      ^cx-^-^^    J^*<^ 


SPECIMENS  OF   BACON'S  HANDWRITING  {showing  variations) 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  ACTOR'S  SIGNATURE   IN  THE 
PUBLIC  RECORDS  OFFICE.    LONDON 


FACSIMILE  OF  DEPOSITION  OF  NICHOLAS  IN  THE 
PUBLIC  RECORDS  OFFICE.    LONDON 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

When  we  read  this,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  had  read  so 
many  unintentional  fictions  of  enthusiastic  Stratfordians,  how 
our  blood  pleasurably  tingled.  We  were  now  to  look  upon 
an  undoubted  signature  of  this  hitherto  Elizabethan  sphinx, 
and  to  see  him  face  to  face.  He  was  no  more  to  elude  us.  We 
would  forget  our  past  doubts,  —  yes,  all  of  them,  —  for  we 
want  our  faith  back  again,  the  faith  of  our  childhood  and 
youth  and  early  manhood,  when  we  looked  upon  the  signa- 
tures to  the  will  at  Stratford-on-Avon  with  awe,  and  discussed 
the  queer  fads  of  our  forefathers,  who  were  wont  to  sign  the 
several  pages  of  their  wills  with  their  names  all  spelled  differ- 
ently and  in  different  handwriting.  How  eagerly,  too,  we 
regarded  the  expressionless  face  in  the  church,  and  the  por- 
traits so  unlike  it  in  the  Folio  which  was  shown  us,  though 
both  were  familiar  in  volumes  of  the  beloved  dramas.  Ah! 
how  hard  is  this  loss  of  early  faiths ;  but  now,  let  Bacon  go 
hang,  we  are  to  have  this  one,  at  least,  restored. 

We  turn  eagerly  to  the  facsimile  of  the  signature,  and,  lo ! 
it  is  another  abbreviated  affair  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
Guildhall  and  Museum  scrawls,  and  sure  to  be  claimed  by 
some  as  having  been  written  by  the  solicitor  who  wrote  the 
depositions ;  indeed  we  find  that  Sir  Edwin  Durning  Lawrence 
has  come  to  this  conclusion,  namely,  that  "Shackp,"  for 
this  is  the  signature,  is  in  the  same  handwriting  as  the  de- 
position. This,  however,  is  doubtful,  for  comparison  with 
the  other  abbreviated  signatures  discloses  resemblances  too 
marked  to  be  ignored.  The  production,  however,  of  this  sig- 
nature by  Professor  Wallace  and  the  disclosure  of  its  writer's 
place  of  abode,  in  one  of  the  obscurest  parts  of  London, 
among  associates  so  unlike  those  with  whom  his  speculative 
biographers  have  hitherto  attempted  to  surround  him,  is  not 
calculated  to  strengthen  the  Stratfordian  cause ;  in  fact,  a  few 
more  such  discoveries  would  place  it  in  a  weaker  position,  if 
possible,  than  it  now  occupies. 

276 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

THE   WILL  AT   DOCTORS*   COMMONS,    LONDON,    PROBATED 
JUNE  22,  1616 

It  has  been  claimed  that  the  absence  of  the  word  "hand,'' 
from  documents  bearing  the  actor's  name,  was  proof  that  he 
could  not  write  it;  but  on  the  will  the  word  "seale"  was 
erased  and  "hand"  written  above  it,  which  objectors  do  not 
seem  to  have  noticed.  This  erasure  and  substitution  are  il- 
luminating, and  raise  the  query.  Did  not  the  law  clerk  who 
wrote  the  Will,  knowing  the  illiteracy  of  the  testator's  entire 
family,  father,  mother,  wife  and  children,  suppose  that  a 
mark  instead  of  a  signature  would  be  used,  and  so  wrote 
"scale"  only?  And  is  it  not  as  fair  an  inference  that  Francis 
Collins,  old  and  experienced  lawyer  that  he  was,  knowing  the 
testator  as  a  wealthy  citizen  of  the  town,  realized  the  impor- 
tance, not  only  of  having  his  signature  to  the  will,  no  matter 
how  imperfect  it  might  be,  but  of  saving  him  from  the  shame 
of  revealing  his  illiteracy  to  the  world,  which  testators  were 
loath  to  do,  and  so  placed  the  first  page  of  the  instrument 
before  him  to  sign,  which  he  most  imperfectly  did,  and  then 
guided  his  hand  to  sign  the  other  pages  ?  This  sanctioned  the 
use  of  the  word  "hand"  and  this  view  of  the  question  clears 
it  of  all  difficulties.  Let  us  consider  these  signatures  critically. 
Phillipps  and  others,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Droeshout  portrait, 
fall  back  upon  them  and  pronounce  them  all  genuine ;  in  fact, 
beyond  question.  The  first  they  pass  by  as  too  obscure  to 
merit  consideration.  To  the  writer  this  signature  is  pregnant 
with  meaning.  True  it  is  impaired  by  age,  but  studied  with 
a  glass  it  partially  shows  its  real  character. 

It  will  be  seen  that  it  has  a  faint  resemblance,  in  spite  of 
its  disfigurement,  to  the  abbreviated  signatures  already  con- 
sidered. These  signatures,  namely,  the  two  on  the  convey- 
ances now  in  the  Museum  and  in  the  Guildhall,  and  the  one  in 
the  Public  Records  Office,  which  are  all  that  are  worthy  to  be 
considered  outside  the  will,  show  illiteracy  too  marked  to  be 

277 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

ignored.  As  far  as  known  the  actor  never  wrote  his  name  in  full. 
Our  opinion  is  that  he  could  laboriously  write  this  form  of  his 
name,  as  we  have  often  seen  illiterate  men  do,  but,  of  course, 
not  twice  quite  alike.  This  runs  counter  to  the  judgment  of 
some  Baconians  who  have  studied  the  signatures  and  pro- 
nounced them,  without  exception,  written  by  the  law  clerks 
who  wrote  the  documents ;  but  we  desire  to  call  attention  to 
this  point;  namely,  that  the  educated  and  skilful  man  may, 
and  the  illiterate  and  unskilful  man — the  limit  of  whose  ac- 
complishments in  chirography  is  a  bungled  attempt  to  escape 
the  odium  of  being  a  mark-man — will  always  leave  a  spoor 
which  identifies  his  signatures;  in  fact,  chirographic  experts 
proceed  upon  the  theory,  that  certain  individual  character- 
istics will  inevitably  appear  in  a  signature  to  guide  them  to 
conclusions,  just  as  experts  do  when  an  unknown  criminal 
leaves  his  thumb-mark  behind.  The  particular  thumb-marks 
in  this  case  are  in  the  letter  (^  and  the  dot  in  the  loop 
of  the    /IjJ^  —  a  striking-  point   which  the  forger 

would  ^  be  almost  certain  to  imitate.  In  the  Museum, 
Guildhall,  and  Records  Office  signatures,  the  letter  "S"  is 
evidently  made  with  the  intention  of  continuing  the  lower 
limb  up  and  over  the  top,  but  with  the  chance  of  hitting  it 
by  a  clumsy  attempt,  which  would,  of  course,  much  change 
its  appearance.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  two  signa- 
tures, which  we  assume  were  written  by  a  guided  hand,  the 
letter  "  S  "  is  quite  unlike  those  we  call  genuine. 

The  autograph  on  the  Guildhall  document  has  been  tam- 
pered with.  Steevens  acknowledged  that  he  placed  the  "a" 
over  the  signature  which  has  appeared  in  most  reproductions 
since.  It  was  the  introduction  of  this  spurious  "a"  which 
caused  him  to  triumphantly  declare  that  it  was  the  trap  which 
caught  Ireland  in  his  forgeries,  he  having  used  it  in  the  same 
way  in  connection  with  one  of  his  spurious  productions.^ 

^  Cf.  Edmond  Malone,  Esq.,  An  Inquiry  into  the  Authenticity  of  Certain 
Miscellaneous  Papers^  etc.,  p.  121.   London,  1796. 

278 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

Before  proceeding  further  let  us  consider  the  conditions 
surrounding  the  signing  of  the  will.  The  date  when  it  was 
drawn,  probably  under  the  direction  of  the  solicitor,  Francis 
Collins,  who  was  not  a  resident  of  Stratford,  was  January  25. 
The  testator  was  then  "  in  perfect  health  and  memorie,"  which 

.i.f^  /,.^^^  ^>^h  r^y-  S)ic^  ^^ 


FACSIMILE  EXHIBIT  FROM  THE  FIRST    PAGE   OF  WILL 

is  unquestionably  true,  or  the  solicitor  would  have  stated  that 
he  was  weak  in  body,  though  of  sound  memory.  After  the 
making  of  the  will,  which  was  left  unsigned  for  further  consid- 
eration, the  actor  contracted  the  "feavour.*'  Just  when  this 
occurred  we  are  not  informed,  but  as  March  drew  to  a  close 
he  was  in  a  critical  condition,  and  Collins  was  called  to  have 
the  will  executed.  There  was  no  necessity  for  recopying  the 
will,  which  had  been  in  existence  for  two  months,  and  it  was 
brought  forth  to  be  signed,  the  date  changed,  the  interlin- 
eations made,  if  they  had  not  been  made  before,  which  is 
not  improbable,  and  the  actor,  holding  the  pen,  began  on  the 

279 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

lower  left  margin  of  the  first  sheet,  and  painfully  scrawled  his 
name  in  the  usual  abbreviated  manner.  The  second  was 
placed  before  him,  and  he  laboriously  began  to  form  the  letter 
"W"  (please  observe  the  V-form  carefully),  but  bungled  so 
badly  that  the  solicitor,  or  scribe  who  accompanied  him,  took 
his  hand,  and,  directing  it,  produced  the  letter  in  a  form 
often  used  by  scriveners,  ^1/^  ^^^  reaching  the  final  sheet, 
which  required  the  words  "By  me,"  he  continued  to 

guide  the  blundering  hand  to  write  these  words  as  well  as 
the  final  signature.  This  accounts  for  the  strong  resemblance 
of  these  signatures  to  the  handwriting  of  the  will  which  has 
been  observed  by  experts  but  never  explained;  in  fact,  to 
prove  that  the  handwriting  of  the  will  and  signatures  are  the 
same,  an  enthusiastic  devotee  at  the  Stratford  shrine  has 
written  a  volume,  and,  after  assuring  us  that  "many  love 
Shakespeare  and  hate  his  detractors,"  who,  by  the  way,  are 
his  own  disciples,  he  declares,  with  the  confidence  of  the  book 
agent,  that  "happily  it  would  appear  that  the  will  itself  is 
his";  ^  that  is,  wholly  written  by  him.  It  seems  a  pity  that 
such  experts  as  this  writer.  Professor  Wallace  and  Mrs.  Kint- 
zel,  cannot  unite  their  psycho-chirographic  knowledge  for  the 
instruction  of  the  world. 

Being  so  largely  the  work  of  the  scribe  the  two  last  signa- 
tures show  that  they  were  dominated  by  him,  yet,  at  the  same 
time,  reveal  the  uncertain  touch  of  the  actor.  The  "S" 
should  be  especially  noticed,  and  the  dot  in  the  loop  of  the 
"W,"  which,  while  not  unique  with  the  actor,  was  a  favorite 
fad  mechanically  learned,  and  not  forgotten  when  his  solici- 
tor helped  him  out  with  his  last  signature  which  he  had  never 
before  written  in  full.  As  has  been  said,  an  illiterate  man,  who 
can  write  his  name  is  almost  sure  to  have  some  particular  point 
the  use  of  which  he  clings  to  as  the  essential  token  of  his  cal- 
ligraphic skill.  Whoever  taught  the  future  actor  to  write,  per- 

1  John  Pyne  Yeatman,  F.R.H.S.,  Is  William  Shakespeare's  Will  Holo- 
graphic ?   London. 

280 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

haps  one  of  the  older  boys  in  the  Grammar  School,  as  Phil- 
Hpps  suggests,  had  a  fancy  for  this  dot  in  the  loop,  and  used 
it  to  the  admiration  of  his  pupil.  Thenceforward,  this  dot, 
if  nothing  else,  must  be  conscientiously  enshrined  within  the 
sheltering  loop  to  give  to  his  signature  the  orthodox  character 


'  fSy"^^^"-^  /^^/^^£^ 


FACSIMILE   EXHIBIT  FROM  THE  SECOND   PAGE   OF  WILL 

which  belonged  to  so  important  an  accomplishment,  and  if 
our  view  of  the  subject  is  correct,  its  final  use  under  the  cir- 
cumstances is  somewhat  pathetic. 

This  view  of  the  case  explains  all  difficulties  which  have  so 
puzzled  the  biographers,  and  have  elicited  so  many  theories. 
Malone,  who  examined  the  will  with  Steevens,  says :  — 

Referring  to  the  first  signature,  we  doubted  whether  if  it  were 
his  handwriting,  and  I  suspect  he  signed  his  name  at  the  end 
of  the  Will  first,  and  so  went  backwards,  which  will  account  for 
that  in  the  first  page  being  worse  written  than  the  rest. 

281 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

And  Steevens,  influenced  by  overmastering  zeal  to  have  a 
readable  signature  of  his  paragon,  gives  this  equally  unten- 
able opinion :  — 

The  last  two  sheets  are  undoubtedly  subscribed  with  Shake- 
speare's own  hand.  The  first,  indeed,  has  his  name  in  the  mar- 
gin, hut  it  differs  somewhat  in  spellings  as  well  as  manner,  from  the 
two  signatures  that  follow. 

It  is  significant  that  Steevens  doubted  the  authenticity  of 
this  signature.  He  examined  it  a  century  or  more  ago,  when 
it  was  no  doubt  clearer  than  now,  and  made  what  purports  to 
be  a  facsimile  of  it.  We  must,  however,  remember  that  both 
Malone  and  Steevens  were  wont  to  take  unwarrantable  liber- 
ties on  occasion ;  Steevens,  as  before  remarked,  having  added 
an  " a ''  to  the  Guildhall  signature,^  and  Malone  having  painted 
the  colored  bust  of  the  actor  white.  Perhaps  no  one  who  has 
impartially  studied  Steevens's  facsimile  has  had  implicit  con- 
fidence in  it,  though  the  other  signatures  we  can  see  to-day 
were  traced  with  care.  Possibly  some  lines  may  have  been 
prolonged  and  additions  may  have  been  made  to  fill  gaps.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  we  do  not  have  this  signature  as  plain 
as  it  might  have  been  at  the  time  it  was  written,  yet  nobody 
should  doubt,  who  studies  what  we  reproduce  from  the  first 
page  of  the  will,  that  it  was  written  by  the  actor.  We  there- 
fore feel  justified  in  regarding  it  as  important  in  our  view  of 
the  case.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  two  reproductions 
here  given,  one  from  the  photo-lithograph  of  the  first  page 
of  the  will  made  fifty  years  ago,  and  the  other  from  Steevens 
(No.  3),  the  top  of  the  "S"  shows,  like  the  three  genuine 
signatures  we  have  considered,  that  it  was  made  with  the  flat 
of  the  pen  slightly  turned  to  the  right,  making  the  ending  of 
the  line  heavier.  Had  Steevens  carried  the  top  of  his  "S"  as 
far  to  the  right  as  it  is  shown  in  the  facsimile  fragment  in  the 
will,  it  would  have  coalesced  with  the  "  h,"  unless  the  paper  has 
shrunken  since  he  traced  it.  This  seems  to  show  that  he  erro- 

*  Malone,  An  Inquiry ^  etc.,  p.  18. 
282 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

neously  curved  the  letter  (y),  making  it  a  rude  figure  "8." 
Let  us  substitute  the  fragment  shown  in  the  will,  and  add  to 
it  the  remainder  of  Steevens's  tracing.  This  gives  us  the  letter 
similar  to  the  form  in  which  it  now  appears  in  the  Guildhall 
signature,  the  top  of  which,  however,  has  been  defaced  prob- 


FACSIMILE  EXHIBIT  FROM  THE  THIRD   PAGE   OF  WILL 

ably  by  age.  Malone's  example  (x)  of  this  letter  we  believe 
to  be  correct,  and  that  the  "S"  in  the  first  signature  (z)  was 
originally  similar  in  character. 

We  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
curious  to  these  points,  so  that  the  character  of  Steevens's 
tracing  may  be  better  understood,  for  no  one  studying  the 
subject  can  ignore  it. 

Phillipps  says :  — 

My  impression,  not  lightly  formed,  is,  that  the  Will  was  origi- 
nally executed  in  January;  —  that  Shakespeare  on  this  occasion 
signed  only  the  last  sheet;  that  at  some  time  between  January 
and  March,  owing  to  the  marriage  of  his  daughter,  Judith,  and 

283 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

other  circumstances,  the  whole  of  Sheet  i  was  rewritten,  and 
two  lines  of  Sheet  2  were  cancelled.  Upon  this  hypothesis,  and 
upon  no  other,  can  I  account  for  the  error  in  the  regnal  year, 
and  for  the  remarkable  diversity  in  the  signatures.  The  signa- 
ture on  the  final  Sheet  I  conceive  to  have  been  the  ordinary  au- 
tograph of  the  Poet  when  in  health,  the  other  signatures,  mere 
formal  attestations  of  the  changes  in  the  early  portion  of  the 
Will,  I  conceive  to  have  been  written  not  long  before  his  death.  ^ 

In  reply,  the  common  custom  of  signing  each  page  of  a  will 
may  be  cited,  and  the  question  may  be  asked,  if  this  last  sig- 
nature was  the  actor's  "ordinary  autograph  when  in  health," 
how  can  we  dispose  of  the  Museum,  Guildhall,  and  Public 
Records  signatures  ^  Are  these  his  "ordinary  autographs  when 
in  health".?  Other  equally  untenable  theories  have  been 
propounded,  and  all  are  ingenious  beggings  of  the  question. 

Of  the  various  theories  advanced  by  critics,  pro  and  con, 
it  is  not  strange  that  so  many  adhere  to  the  belief  that  the 
actor  could  not  sign  his  own  name,  and  that  they  are  the  work 
of  the  solicitors,  or  lawyer's  clerks  who  wrote  the  documents. 
To  this,  however,  the  writer  cannot  subscribe.  They  were 
signed  at  different  times  and  places,  and  are  sufficiently  alike 
to  show  that  they  were  written  by  the  same  hand,  and  not  by 
different  law  clerks. 

Among  the  many  puzzles  connected  with  the  actor,  the 
signatures  are  not  the  least,  and  when  Wallace  so  positively 
announced  that  at  last  we  were  to  have  a  fine  autograph  of 
the  actor  of  undoubted  authenticity,  the  disappointment  was 
genuine  when  the  "find"  proved  to  be  a  very  small  egg  pre- 
ceded by  a  very  exaggerated  cackle.  Not  that  a  passably  good 
signature  would  add  an  iota  to  the  claim  of  the  actor's  devotees 
that  he  was  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  but  be- 
cause everybody  would  be  glad  to  concede  to  him  the  ability 
to  write  his  name,  even  imperfectly,  which  so  many  of  the 
best  thinkers  now  deny  him.  The  mere  possibility  of  such  a 
denial  in  such  a  case  by  men  of  unquestioned  character  and 

^  H.  Staunton,  Memorials  of  Shakespeare.   London. 
284 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

ability  is  certainly  astounding,  and  hitherto  unheard  of  in  the 
world  of  literature. 

When  the  foregoing  was  written  we  had  not  read  Mrs. 
Kintzel's  article  in  the  "Menschenkenner"  ^  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  it  seems  necessary  to  consider  the  theory  advanced 
by  this  author,  which,  in  our  opinion,  has  been  pressed  alto- 
gether too  far,  namely,  that  the  handwriting  of  a  person, 
though  he  he  not  known  as  the  author,^  expresses  his  character 
so  fully  that  he  can  be  identified  by  it.  It  is  no  doubt  true 
that  mental  characteristics  and  physical  expressions  are  cor- 
relative, but  when  one  attempts  to  trace  a  psychological  per- 
sonality in  the  field  of  calligraphy,  he  is  in  danger  of  becoming 
the  sport  of  illusions.  If  a  man  could  write  a  natural  hand, 
certain  superficial  traits  of  character  might  be  suggestively 
disclosed,  but  by  the  writing-master  and  the  copy-book, 
the  natural  hand  is  greatly  influenced:  Mrs.  Kintzel  says, 
"wholly  obliterated";  and  here  it  is  that  the  theoretical  ex- 
pert in  calligraphy  finds  his  limitation.  It  is  often  amusing  to 
see  the  curt  way  in  which  experienced  judges  treat  such  ex- 
perts when  an  attempt  is  made  to  apply  fine-spun  theories 
to  cases  involving  identification  of  handwriting;  in  fact,  jus- 
tice would  not  halt  if  the  calligraphic  expert  was  altogether 
eliminated  in  trials.  To  illustrate:  Not  long  ago  a  person  was 
convicted  of  murder  almost  solely  on  the  testimony  of  profes- 
sional experts  in  calligraphy,  who  declared  that  a  letter  accus- 
ing an  unknown  person  of  being  the  guilty  party  was  in  the 
handwriting  of  the  one  charged  with  the  crime.  But  for  this 
letter  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  case  would  have  broken 
down.  The  result  of  the  "expert"  testimony  was  conviction, 
and  some  time  afterwards  the  real  writer  confessed  to  its 
authorship,  having  written  it  in  behalf,  but  without  the 
knowledge  of,  the  condemned. 

The  expert  follows  in  his  exposition  of  a  signature  what 

^  Otto  Wigand,  Der  Menschenkenner.    Leipzig,  Jahrg,  1909,  no.  10. 
2  The  italics  are  ours. 

28s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

seems  a  fairly  well-defined  path.  He  calls  attention  to  the  up- 
stroke, the  loop,  its  round,  flat,  or  angular  form,  the  uniform- 
ity or  variation  of  a  certain  letter,  the  strength  of  the  hair- 
line, the  use  of  the  dot ;  common  features  in  all  handwritings, 
but  just  such  features  as  most  readily  appeal  to  the  inexpert 
juryman,  and  would  be  convincing  if  the  judge  did  not  now 
and  then  intervene  with  a  searching  question  calculated  to 
expose  the  theoretical  character  of  the  evidence.  We  have 
already  remarked  that  the  illiterate  man  affords  to  the  expert 
agreeable  opportunities,  for  he  is  prone  to  have  one  or  more 
favorite  forms  to  which  he  clings  as  a  drowning  man  to  a  life- 
line. He  has  laboriously  learned  to  write  his  name  under 
the  tutelage  of  one  who  has  a  fad  which  he  loves  to  display 
ostentatiously  to  his  admiring  pupil,  like  dotting  an  "i," 
adding  a  flourish,  or  giving  some  capital  letter  a  distinguish- 
ing quirk.  An  expert  writer  is  less  apt  to  do  this,  as  he  has 
learned,  perhaps,  from  different  masters  or  copy-books,  a 
variety  of  letters  which  he  uses  almost  unconsciously. 

We  are  led  to  this  repetition  perhaps  unnecessarily  prolix, 
because  of  the  article  mentioned,  which  is  a  curious  exhibi- 
tion of  futile  theorizing  on  the  signatures  to  the  Stratford 
actor's  will.  The  writer,  Mrs.  Thumm-Kintzel,  in  a  German 
magazine  attempts  by  purely  speculative  methods  an  elucida- 
tion of  certain  obscure  matters  relating  to  that  much-discussed 
instrument. 

Had  not  several  English  Baconians  applauded  Mrs.  Kint- 
zeFs  effort,  though  strangely  enough  leaving  it  untranslated, 
and  seemingly  missing  its  point,  we  should  have  regarded 
much  of  it  as  hardly  worthy  of  consideration.  Setting  forth 
a  fairly  accurate  story  of  the  position  of  the  contestants  in 
the  Bacon-Shakspere  discussion,  Mrs.  Kintzel  says  that  "a 
comparison  of  the  characteristics  of  the  writing  of  the  will," 
and 

A  study  of  the  handwriting  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth  lead  to 
the  following  surprising  conclusions:  — 

286 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

1.  A  "scribe"  as  writer  of  the  will  is  not  to  be  considered; 
{kommt  nicht  in  Frage). 

2.  The  collected  signatures,  especially  the  "By  me,  William 
Shakespeare,"  as  well  as  the  others,  as  far  as  they  are  re- 
cognizable, show  a  clear  identity  with  the  characteristics 
of  the  writing  in  the  will. 

3.  The  handwriting  of  the  will  is  of  so  intellectual  and  artistic 
a  type,  that  a  Shakespeare  may  well  be  considered  its  au- 
thor: {das  sehr  wohl  ein  Shakespeare  fur  sie  in  Frage  kommt). 

To  the  first  point  it  is  to  be  said  that  it  is  characteristic  of  a 
scribe's  writing;  that  it  reproduces  exactly,  correctly,  clearly, 
legibly,  and  uniformly  the  normal  types,  and  the  prescribed 
calligraphic  forms  of  his  age;  that  it  almost  wholly  obliterates 
that  which  gives  an  individual  stamp  to  the  handwriting.  Ex- 
amples of  such  handwriting  between  1523  and  1680  are  given 
which,  it  is  claimed,  conform  to  a  uniform  scribe  type  {schreiher 
Typus) . 

The  handwriting  of  the  will  stands  in  the  sharpest  contrast 
to  all  these  types.  It  is  incorrect,  often  careless,  hardly  legible, 
and  shows  a  freedom,  extravagance,  yes,  exuberance  of  form, 
such  as  a  scribe  would  never  permit  himself. 

This  statement  any  one  by  a  comparison  of  manuscripts  of 
this  period  can  satisfy  himself  is  erroneous,  for  such  exuberance 
of  form  is  common  with  scribes,  as  it  is  with  others. 

Farther,  this  will  was  not  written  at  one  draught,  and  in 
one  day,  but  at  wholly  different  times,  and  in  contrary  moods 
{gegensatzlichen  Stimmungen) ;  yes,  even  under  bodily  conditions, 
as  the  sharp  change  in  the  size  and  form  of  the  letters  proves. 

The  author  then  goes  into  the  origin  of  the  opinion  that 
a  lawyer's  scribe  wrote  the  will ;  a  quite  unnecessary  point  as 
the  origin  of  the  opinion  could  be  of  no  weight  in  determining 
the  fact.  The  evidence  that  there  were  interlineations  and 
changes  after  the  will  was  draughted  appears  plainly  on  its 
face.  There  is  no  mystery  whatever  about  this,  and  it  re- 
quires no  oracle  to  tautologically  assure  us  that  it  was  not 
"written  at  one  draught,  and  in  one  day,  but  at  wholly  dif- 
ferent times"  (in  einem  Zuge  und  an  einem  Tage,  sondern 

287 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

zuganz  verschiedenen  Zeiten),  as  it  must  have  been  if  not  writ- 
ten in  one  day. 

Of  Francis  Collins,  whom  some  have  believed  to  have  writ- 
ten the  will,  she  informs  us  that  it  "shows  a  fundamentally 
different  type,  so  as  to  exclude  wholly  the  possibility  of  iden- 
tity with  the  handwriting  of  the  will.'* 

Byrde,  whom  nobody  for  a  moment  supposes  wrote  it,  is 
unnecessarily  disposed  of,  and  the  origin  of  the  notion  that  it 


^ 


■fi^ 


FACSIMILES  OF  THE  SIGNATURE  OF  FRANCIS  COLLINS 

was  written  by  a  scribe  easily  run  down  to  a  letter  by  the 
Reverend  Joseph  Greene,  who  made  the  stupid  remark  that 
it  was  "absolutely  void  of  the  least  particle  of  that  spirit 
which  animated  our  great  poet,"  and  the  disappointment  of 
West,  to  whom  he  gave  it,  that  it  was  not  holographic.  With 
respect  to  the  signature  of  Collins  we  here  produce  the  only 
three  examples  we  have  been  able  to  procure,  one  of  which  is 
from  the  will  and  the  other  two  from  documents  at  Stratford, 
which  show,  what  every  collector  and  student  of  autographs 
is  aware  of,  that  some  facile  writers  at  times  write  their  names 
in  very  different  ways.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  Collins 
did  not  write  the  will.  We  shall  show  that  it  was  written 
by  a  scribe. 

288 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

Of  Malone's  conviction  that  the  will  was  written  in  the 
clerical  hand  of  that  age,  Mrs.  Kintzel  says  that  it  is 

hardly  to  be  accepted,  however,  that  Malone,  who  began  his 
studies  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  Shakespeare's  death, 
and  who  certainly  possessed  no  knowledge  of  graphiology,  could 
be  so  accurately  informed  as  to  the  characteristics  of  that  age. 
With  hand  on  heart  {Hand  aufs  Herz)  what  layman  would  dare 
to  pronounce  with  assurance  upon  a  handwriting  of  the  year 
1760  as  coming  from  a  scribe?  and  not  one  graphologist  has  stud- 
ied these  documents  because  no  one  suspected  their  significance. 

We  must  take  issue  with  Mrs.  Kintzel  in  several  foregoing 
particulars.  We  claim  that  it  is  exaggeration  to  say  that  "a 
scribe's  writing  reproduces  exactly  and  uniformly  the  normal 
types,  and  the  prescribed  calligraphic  forms  of  his  age."  The 
same  differences,  perhaps  in  not  so  marked  a  degree,  exist 
in  the  handwriting  of  scribes,  as  exist  in  the  handwriting  of 
other  facile  penmen.  Nor  is  it  true  that  "the  handwriting  of 
the  will  stands  in  the  sharpest  contrast  to  these  types'';  that 
is,  the  "normal  types"  of  the  actor's  age. 

The  present  writer  has  examined,  in  English  and  French 
archives,  many  manuscripts  of  the  period  from  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
asserts  his  belief  that  there  are  no  defined  limits  of  life  to  any 
large  group  of  letters  in  existence  at  a  certain  period.  Some 
individual  letter-forms  may  not,  figuratively  speaking,  sur- 
vive, while  other  associated  letter-forms  may  continue  in 
existence ;  hence,  the  use  of  the  term  "  prescribed  calligraphic 
forms  of  an  age"  is  unwarranted.  Certain  so-called  systems 
of  penmanship  may  come  into  fashion,  and  influence  preva- 
lent letter-forms,  but  not  in  a  sufficient  degree  to  validate  the 
term  quoted,  and  when  specimens  of  the  writing  of  a  period, 
say  of  a  century,  are  compared,  all  attempts  to  apply  hard- 
and-fast  rules  to  define  the  limits  of  a  so-called  "  calligraphic 
age"  result  in  failure.  We  do,  however,  admit  that  the  in- 
fluence of  the  schoolmaster  and  the  copy-book,  not  wholly, 

289 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

but  in  large  measure,  "obliterates  that  which  gives  an  individ- 
ual stamp  to  the  handwriting,"  but  for  Mrs.  Kintzel's  theory 
this  seems  a  dangerous  admission.  Of  course,  the  layman, 
however  studious,  never  expects  to  be  recognized  in  any  field 
by  the  professional  expert  who  is  fain  to  assume  the  purple,  be 
his  experience  ever  so  limited. 
Mrs.  Kintzel  continues :  — 

We  now  come  to  Point  2,  —  the  identity  of  the  signature  with 
the  main  body  of  the  will.  Referring  to  the  last  signature  we  see, 
on  the  right,  certain  letters  from  the  Shakespeare  signature,  "By 
me,  William  Shakespeare,"  and  on  the  left,  the  identical  let- 
ters from  the  will.  The  similarity  of  form  is  highly  surprising 
(hochst  uherraschend) . 

Not  at  all,  for  while  letter-forms  change  there  are  tempo- 
rary fashions  in  some  letters.  Anticipating  this  reply  Mrs. 
Kintzel  proceeds  to  fortify  her  position :  — 

One  can  perhaps  suggest  that  it  would  not  be  difficult  in  the 
case  of  so  small  a  row  of  letters  to  find  parallel  characteristics 
with  any  English  handwriting  of  that  time.  Let  one  attempt  it 
and  he  will  be  convinced  of  the  difficulty,  even  of  the  impossibility 
of  his  undertaking. 

Reference  is  made  to  letters  in  the  will  as  examples: — 

So  any  one  who  has  a  knowledge  of  the  science  of  handwriting 
will  agree  with  me  when  I  say  that  it  is  endlessly  difficult  in  the 
case  of  the  handwriting  of  an  intellectual  genius  to  establish 
firmly  identical  forms  of  any  one  letter,  since  the  genius  {Geniali- 
tdt)  of  handwriting  consists  exactly  in  creating  continually  new 
letter-forms,  and  new  combinations  in  the  joining  of  the  stroke. 
So  the  signatures  of  Shakespeare  are  remarkably  different,  and 
show  always  another  portrait,  at  least,  outwardly. 

Yes,  the  actor's  signatures  are  "remarkably  different,"  as 
we  show  by  placing  all  the  letters  in  them  before  the  reader, 
instead  of  a  few  selected  ones  (see  p.  270),  and  if  anybody 
can  discover  genius  in  them,  he  must  possess  the  vision  of  an 
archangel. 

290 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

Mrs.  Kintzel  continues :  — 

To  that  come  clear  similarities  in  the  complete  likeness  of  the 
signatures  (especially  of  the  first  of  the  final  signatures)  with  the 
will. 

Here  we  see : 

1.  Great  distance  between  the  words  —  noble  dignity  {Edle 
Wurde) . 

2.  Clear  concave  lines  —  Brilnetter  Type, 

3.  Stronge  change  in  the  direction  of  the  letter-strokes, 
violence,  excitability  {Heftigkeit,  Erregbarkeit). 

4.  Uneven  placing  of  letters,  now  too  far  apart,  now  too  close 
together;  lack  of  love  of  order  (Ordnungsliebe) . 

5.  Horizontal  position  of  the  final  strokes.  A  will  that  knows 
how  to  command,  and  endless  other  similar  traits  in  hand- 
writing and  character. 

Mrs.  Kintzel  calls  attention  to  several  specimens  of  hand- 
writing in  the  actor's  time  for  comparison  and  continues :  — 

The  handwriting  of  the  will  holds  the  character,  the  soul  of 
the  artistic  creative  genius  of  a  Titan,  and  so  I  have  held  it 
worthy  to  place  it,  as  of  equal  birth  with  the  artistic  writing  of  a 
Beethoven  and  of  a  Goethe. —  I  must  for  the  present  renounce 
going  into  a  discussion  of  the  character  of  the  handwriting,  as  now 
only  the  establishment  of  the  identity  is  important.  The  next 
issue  will  probably  describe  the  author  of  the  will  as  to  genius, 
character,  temperament,  yes,  appearance  and  weakness. 

If,  however,  the  result  of  a  search  for  the  writer  of  the  will 
should  establish  even  with  irrefutable  certainty  that  it  was  not 
from  the  hand  of  Shakespeare,  no  one  can  force  me  from  the 
rock-bound  conclusion  that  "Whoever  wrote  the  will,  he  was  a 
genius!" 

Had  the  author  of  this  astounding  bit  of  hyperbole  given 
the  ordinary  attention  of  a  student  to  her  subject,  she  would 
have  found  that  her  artistic  Titan  was  no  more  than  an  ob- 
scure scrivener  who  has  left  enough  examples  of  his  chirog- 
raphy  in  Stratford  to  prove  beyond  question  his  identity 
with  the  writer  of  the  will.  To  settle  this  fact  beyond  cavil, 
instead  of  leaving  the  reader  to  depend  alone  upon  our  certi- 
fication of  it,  we  wrote  to  the  secretary  of  the  "  Birthplace  "  at 

291 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Stratford,  calling  his  attention  to  certain  documents  there, 
and  requesting  him  to  compare  them  with  the  will,  and  to 
inform  us  if  they  were  in  the  same  handwriting.  This  is  his 
reply :  — 

Shakespeare's  Birthplace, 

Stratford-upon-Avon, 

Jan.  i8,  1915. 

Dear  Sir:  — 

I  have  made  a  careful  comparison  of  the  handwritings  of  the 
will  and  the  draft  of  the  tithe-conveyance  of  1605,  and,  without 
doubt,  both  are  written  by  the  same  hand.  Furthermore  both 
the  actual  conveyance  and  the  bond  from  Huband  to  Shakespeare 
for  the  due  performance  of  the  contract  in  the  assignment  are  in 
the  same  handwriting.  After  studying  the  signatures  of  Francis 
Collins,  I  feel  convinced  that  these  documents  were  not  written 
by  him,  but  that  they  were  the  work  of  some  clerk  in  his  employ- 
ment whose  name  is  at  present  unknown. 

I  remain 

Yours  very  faithfully, 

Fred  C.  Wellstood. 
(Used  by  permission.) 

This  should  settle  forever  the  question  of  who  wrote  the 
will.  On  the  theory  that  it  was  written  by  the  man  who  penned 
the  abominable  signatures  which  remain  as  evidence  of  his 
illiteracy,  and  the  equally  untenable  one  that  the  artificial 
Italian  signature  which  Bacon  sometimes  affected  was  his 
natural  hand,  —  both  theories  the  result  of  inexcusable  igno- 
rance of  her  subject, — Mrs.  Kintzel  has  won  the  admiration 
of  some  of  our  all  too  fervid  disciples  of  German  speculative 
thought. 

After  this  display  of  Mrs.  Kintzel's  Icarian  daring,  one  can 
but  be  reminded  of  Clelia's  discovery  of  the  New  Messiah, 
and,  especially,  of  the  studious  Stratfordian,  who  also  pos- 
sessed "a  rock-bound  conclusion,"  and  proclaimed  to  the 
world  that  he  had  finally  settled  the  authorship  of  the  plays 
by  finding  so  many  Warwickshire  names  in  them ;  but  an- 
other student  having  produced  a  longer  list  of  the  same 

292 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

names  abounding  in  other  English  shires,  the  rock  crumbled. 
At  this  point  Mrs.  Kintzel  expresses  the  hope  which  all  have 
expressed :  — 

That  one  page  of  MS.  may  be  discovered  that  bears  upon  the 
high  problems  of  the  dramas;  the  profound  reflections;  the  being 
and  life  of  men  and  the  animal  world;  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
sickness  and  insanity;  the  course  of  the  stars,  clouds,  and  wind; 
the  influence  of  the  moon  on  the  sea,  and  upon  all  the  thousand 
things  that  are  brought  out  with  such  wisdom  in  Shakespearian 
Works.   Who  can  find  them? 

To  this  a  Baconian  would  reply  that  all  these  subjects  have 
been  treated  in  the  works  of  a  contemporary  in  a  manner 
which  should  be  satisfying  to  an  unprejudiced  inquirer. 

It  seems  evident  from  Mrs.  Kintzel's  article,  and  from  others 
in  the  same  number  of  the  "  Menschenkenner,"  that  in  the 
psychology  of  graphiology  the  German  has  outdistanced  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  though  we  have,  it  is  true,  indulged  in  similar 
pleasing  fictions,  such  as  the  belief  that  our  revered  Agassiz 
from  a  single  bone  could  reconstruct  a  hitherto  unknown  fish ; 
but  our  Teutonic  necromancers  can,  by  a  deft  psychological 
bit  of  legerdemain,  with  a  few  letters  of  a  dead  man's  hand- 
writing resurrect  and  present  him  to  us  in  all  his  pristine 
beauty  or  ugliness.  Shade  of  Judge  Walton !  who  loved  not 
handwriting  experts,  what  would  he  have  said  to  this .? 

With  respect  to  the  challenge  of  Mrs.  Kintzel  we  assert 
as  positively  that  scores  of  letters  of  the  same  character  can 
be  found  in  contemporary  or  near  contemporary  documents. 
What  we  consider  of  greater  importance  is  to  prove  our  con- 
tention that  in  the  two  last  signatures  the  hand  of  the  actor 
was  guided.  If  it  were,  and  it  was  not  uncommon  in  certain 
cases,  it  explains  at  once  how  these  signatures  have  lured  care- 
less observers  into  the  fallacious  theory  that  the  will  was 
written  by  the  testator.  With  the  two  final  signatures  of  the 
will  disposed  of,  we  have,  as  already  said,  four  of  the  actor's 
signatures  left,  including  the  first  from  Steevens's  tracing  on 

293 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  will,  which  is  now  almost  obliterated,  and  three  others, 
fortunately,  quite  legible.  Again  we  want  to  call  especial  at- 
tention to  the  "S"  in  each  of  these,  because  of  the  great  im- 
portance which  this  letter  plays  in  the  discussion  of  this  sub- 
ject. We  have  reproduced  them  to  show  that  the  actor  knew 
but  one  way  of  making  the  most  important  of  all  the  letters 
of  his  name.  He  always  began  by  attempting  a  sort  of  rude 
"S"  similar  in  form  to  the  one  familiar  to  him  in  print,  and 
ended  by  carrying  the  final  stroke  up  over  it,  but  in  a  bungling 
manner,  a  form,  however,  not  original  with  him  for  it  is  often 
met  with.  That  this  was  the  way  he  made  every  one  of  these 
letters  is  not  only  shown  by  their  form,  but  by  the  lighter  and 
heavier  parts  of  the  stroke.  That  the  formation  of  the  letter 
ended  at  the  top  is  shown  by  the  heavier  stroke.  Compare 
again  these  two  letters  on  the  Museum  and  Guildhall  docu- 
ments. At  first  sight  they  look  so  unlike  that  Gervais  and 
others  exclaim  that  they  can  hardly  have  been  written  by  the 
same  hand.  Malone,  who  saw  them  over  a  century  ago,  gives 
us  a  facsimile  of  the  one  which  departs  most  from  the  others. 
Doubtless  if  the  writer  had  had  a  pen  which  flowed  equally 
well  in  both  cases  the  letters  would  have  looked  much  more 
alike. 

Of  course  Mrs.  Kintzel  must  have  her  fling  at  Bacon,  and 
she  produces  his  signature,  the  Italian  one,  which,  if  it  en- 
shrines any  psychological  secrets,  they  are  those  of  the  per- 
son who  taught  him  this  beautiful  but  quite  artificial  hand. 

Specimens  of  this  hand,  written  by 
others  while  it  was  in  vogue,  could  be 
produced  so  exactly  similar  that  even 
Mrs.  Kintzel  would  be  puzzled  to  see 
a  difference.  Evidently  the  lady  was 
not  aware  of  the  versatility  of  Bacon,  and  that  the  signature 
under  discussion  was  not  his  natural  hand,  so  she  babbles 
like  this,  in  conformity  with  Liebig's  spiteful  portraiture  of 
him:  — 

294 


A  CRUCIAL  QUESTION 

We  come  now  to  the  handwriting  of  Francis  Bacon.  It  is  in 
essence  other  than  that  of  the  will.  The  letters  are  of  a  pe- 
dantic uniformity,  the  pressure  weak  and  colorless,  the  uncon- 
trolled traits  of  an  impetuous  temperament  are  lacking,  and  we 
miss  almost  entirely  the  curves  and  rhythms  of  poet  and  artist. 
It  shows  all  the  traits  of  vanity,  self-deception,  self-seeking,  con- 
ceit, and  self-love.  We  see  clearly  here  an  earnest,  and  for  the 
Shakespeare  dramas,  a  too  earnest,  witless,  and  humorless  crea- 
tor, a  busy  collector  of  political  and  legal  matters,  but  a  glow  of 
fancy  never  and  nowhere.  We  see  further  a  noticeable  leaning  to 
lack  of  uprightness,  nobility,  and  untruthfulness.  We  see  the 
smooth,  courtly  flatterer,  and  so  much  more  which  we  can  here 
only  casually  point  to,  and  so  we  ask  our  graphiological  colleagues 
to  pass  judgment. 

And  this  dreamer  soberly  declares  her  belief  that  by  such 
futile  efforts  the  Greatest  of  Literary  Problems  may  be  solved, 
and  she  thus  concludes :  — 

Perhaps  with  united  efl'orts,  in  this  way  a  solution  of  the  riddle, 
which  has  till  now  been  in  vain,  may  be  found. 

We  have  devoted,  perhaps,  too  much  space  to  this  fanciful 
German  theorist  who  has  based  a  defamation  of  character 
upon  a  single  signature,  and  that  an  artificial  one;  but  in 
view  of  the  favor  with  which  such  work  has  been  received  in 
some  quarters,  we  hope  to  be  justified. 

Since  the  foregoing  was  written  "  scare  "  headlines  in  news- 
papers and  periodicals  announce  another  "Great  Discovery 
of  Dr.  Wallace" ;  "the  lively  certainty  of  the  exact  site  of  the 
famous  playhouse,  the  Globe  Theater."  Yet  we  are  told  "That 
to  many  the  principal  feature  of  the  documents  now  first  re- 
vealed by  Dr.  Wallace  is  the  proof  they  give  of  the  eminence 
of  Shakespeare."  "Shakespeare  was  by  no  means,"  says  Dr. 
Wallace,  "the  largest  shareholder  in  the  property"  under 
consideration,  a  fact,  by  the  way,  which  has  always  been 
known.  His  "eminence,"  however,  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
"in  one  document  he  is  mentioned  alone  *Williehni  Shake- 
speare et  aliorum'";  and  farther,  "The  date  of  the  building 

29s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  the  Globe  is  now  for  the  first  time  settled  within  a  month 
or  two."  Hereafter  the  eminence  of  a  man  should  be  undoubted 
if  he  is  fortunate  enough  to  get  **et  al."  attached  to  his  name 
in  a  document.  It  is  quite  important,  too,  for  the  world  to 
know  how  many  inches,  or  even  feet,  to  the  east  or  north  of  the 
supposed  site  of  the  Globe  the  real  site  was,  and  the  date  of  its 
erection  "within  a  month  or  two."  Of  course  to  orthodox 
Stratfordians  like  Lee,  Clelia,  Thorpe,  Mrs.  Kintzel,  Robert- 
son, this  is  proof  positive  that  the  actor  wrote  "Hamlet,"  and 
we  may  expect  Baconians  to  be  more  hotly  abused  than  ever. 
The  fact  is,  we  want  as  many  true  discoveries  made  concern- 
ing the  actor  as  possible,  and  will  join  our  Stratford  friends  in 
hailing  them  with  unstinted  enthusiasm.  Thus  far,  however, 
such  discoveries  have  materially  strengthened  the  Baconian 
cause,  as  we  believe  all  future  ones  will  if  that  cause  is  based 
upon  truth;  if  it  is  not,  it  will  inevitably  and  justly  fail,  for 
truth  is  invincible  and  opinion  a  passing  breath. 


FRANCIS   BACON    (By  Passe) 


\ 


:li 


AT  TWELVE 


AT  EIGHTEEN 


VIII 

FRANCIS  BACON,  VISCOUNT  ST.  ALBANS, 
BARON  VERULAM  OF  VERULAM 

In  sketching  the  life  and  character  of  a  man,  especially  if 
he  has  been  fortunate  enough  to  be  both  praised  and  blamed, 
one  cannot  be  too  vigilant  in  avoiding  bias,  an  infection  from 
which  biographers  rarely  escape.  Several  biographies  and 
sketches,  more  or  less  complete,  of  the  life  of  Francis  Bacon, 
have  been  written:  the  first  by  Rawley,  his  private  chaplain; 
then,  by  Boener,  his  physician;  Campbell,  Montagu,  Fowler, 
Abbott,  Garnett,  and  notably  by  Spedding,  who  has  also 
given  us  many  of  his  letters. 

The  best  test  of  a  man's  character  and  worth  should  be 
found  in  the  testimony  of  contemporaries,  and  of  these  we 
have  a  cloud  of  unimpeachable  witnesses  to  Francis  Bacon's 
transcendent  genius,  righteousness,  and  altruism,  —  Rawley, 
Boener,  Matthew,  Fuller,  Aubrey,  and  many  others, — Aubrey 
making  the  sweeping  declaration  that  "All  who  were  good  and 
great  loved  him."  Some  modern  writers,  however,  have  seen 
in  him  nothing,  and  others  everything,  to  commend.  To  un- 
derstand this  we  must  recognize  the  fact  that  the  human  mind, 
with  rare  exceptions,  is  subconsciously  or  by  transmission 
from  some  other  mind  that  has  adventured  into  the  same 
field  which  it  is  exploring,  sensitively  alive  to  suggestion  which 
is  readily  transformed  into  theory  unless  restrained.  Such  a 
mind  when  it  undertakes  to  delineate  a  dead  man's  character, 
with  little  beside  his  correspondence  with  various  people,  with 
some  of  whom  he  can  be  familiar,  while  with  others  he  must  be 
reserved  or  evasive,  complaisant  or  aggressive,  is  sure  to  pro- 
duce a  portrait  which  would  be  unrecognizable  to  a  contempo- 
rary.  Especially  is  this  true  if  his  subject  has  figured  in  the 

297 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

political  life  of  his  time,  no  matter  how  righteous  he  may  have 
been;  indeed,  the  righteous  often  furnish  a  better  target  to 
the  defamer  than  the  unrighteous.  A  fair  example  of  this  is 
furnished  by  two  among  Bacon's  biographers,  one  of  whom, 
Dixon, ^  has  grossly  overpraised,  and  the  other,  an  anony- 
mous but  able  writer,  has  as  grossly  abused,  him.^ 

Two  German  writers  have  especially  made  Bacon  the  sub- 
ject of  animadversion,  Liebig  and  Diihring.^  Says  Fowler  of 
the  former,  "  Baron  Liebig,  whose  diatribe  affords  an  example 
of  literary  animosity  which  is  fortunately  rare  in  recent  times, 
condemns  almost  all  his  logical  precepts  as  antiquated  or 
worthless."  *  These  writers  have  largely  influenced  German 
opinion  upon  the  subject,  and  added  a  keener  edge  to  German 
contempt  of  English  thought.  Yet  may  we  not  ask  how  far 
they  have  advanced  in  the  field  of  metaphysical  knowledge ; 
how  much  more  have  they  achieved  than  the  creation  of  an 
ingenious  scheme  of  terminology;  and  if  egoism  is  the  fruit  of 
their  claim  to  superiority,  is  the  world  a  gainer  by  their  efforts  ? 
While  Bacon's  system  may  be  justly  open  to  criticism  as  im- 
perfect, as  all  systems  are,  it  has  certainly  the  merit  of  being 
Christian.  We  are  aware  that  it  has  been  denominated  Machi- 
avellian, and  will  quote  his  own  words  in  disproof:  — 

Wisdom  for  a  man's  self  Is,  in  many  branches  thereof,  a  de- 
praved thing.  It  is  the  wisdom  of  rats,  that  will  be  sure  to  leave  a 
house  somewhat  before  it  falls.  It  is  the  wisdom  of  the  fox,  that 
thrusts  out  the  badger,  who  digged  and  made  room  for  him. 

Men  that  are  great  lovers  of  themselves  waste  the  public.  Di- 
vide with  reason  between  self-love  and  society;  and  be  so  true  to 
thyself  as  thou  be  not  false  to  others,  especially  to  thy  king  and 
country. 

^  W.  Hepworth  Dixon,  Personal  History  of  Lord  Bacon.  London,  1861.  Cf. 
Story  of  Lord  Bacon's  Life,  ibid.,  1862. 

2  The  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Francis  Bacon,  etc.  Anon.  London,  1861.  Cf. 
Diihring,  Kritische  Geschichte,  etc. 

^  Justus  von  Liebig.  Cf .  Ueber  Francis  Bacon  von  Verulam,  und  die  Methode 
der  N aturforschung.  Translation  in  Macmillan^s  Magazine,  July,  1883. 

*  Thomas  Fowler,  M.A.,  F.S.A.,  Bacon,  p.  133.   New  York,  1881. 

298 


FRANCIS  BACON 
And  this:  — 

If  a  man's  mind  be  truly  inflamed  with  charity,  it  raises  him 
to  greater  perfection  than  all  the  doctrines  of  morality  can  do; 
which  is  but  a  sophist  in  comparison  with  the  other.  Nay,  further, 
as  Xenophon  truly  observed,  "that  all  other  affections  though 
they  raise  the  mind,  yet  they  distort  and  disorder  it  by  their  ec- 
stasies and  excesses,  but  only  love  at  the  same  time  exalts  and 
composes  it";  so  all  the  other  qualities  which  we  admire  in  man, 
though  they  advance  nature,  are  yet  subject  to  excess;  whereas 
charity  alone  admits  of  no  excess.^ 

Happily  there  are  Germans  appreciative  of  English  genius, 
and  we  will  quote  Gervinus,  a  better  authority  than  those  of 
whom  we  have  spoken.  He  says,  advising  his  countrymen  to 
cultivate  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works:  — 

A  similar  benefit  would  it  be  to  our  intellectual  life  if  his  famed 
contemporary.  Bacon,  were  revived  in  a  suitable  manner,  in 
order  to  counterbalance  the  idealistic  philosophy  of  Germany. 
For  both  these,  the  poet  as  well  as  the  philosopher,  having  looked 
deeply  into  the  history  and  politics  of  their  people,  stand  upon 
the  level  ground  of  reality,  notwithstanding  the  high  art  of  the 
one  and  the  speculative  notions  of  the  other.  .  .  . 

Both  in  philosophy  and  poetry  everything  conspired,  as  it 
were,  throughout  this  prosperous  period,  in  favour  of  two  great 
minds,  Shakespeare  and  Bacon;  all  competitors  vanished  from 
their  side,  and  they  could  give  forth  laws  for  art  and  science 
which  it  is  incumbent  even  upon  present  ages  to  fulfil.  As  the 
revived  philosophy,  which  in  the  former  century  In  Germany  was 
divided  among  many,  but  in  England  at  that  time  was  the 
possession  of  a  single  man,  so  poetry  also  found  one  exclusive 
heir,  compared  with  whom  those  later  born  could  claim  but 
little. 

That  Shakespeare's  appearance  upon  a  soil  so  admirably  pre- 
pared was  neither  marvellous  nor  accidental  is  evidenced  even 
by  the  corresponding  appearance  of  such  a  contemporary  as 
Bacon.  Scarcely  can  anything  be  said  of  Shakespeare's  position 
generally  with  regard  to  mediaeval  poetry  which  does  not  also 

^  James  Spedding,  The  Works  of  Francis  Bacon^  vol.  xii,  p.  159.  Boston,  1861. 
Cf.  vol.  IX,  pp.  262-97. 

299 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

bear  upon  the  position  of  the  renovator  Bacon  with  regard  to 
mediaeval  philosophy.  Neither  knew  nor  mentioned  the  other, 
although  Bacon  was  almost  called  upon  to  have  done  so  in  his 
remarks  upon  the  theatre  of  his  day. 

As  Shakespeare  balanced  the  one-sided  errors  of  the  imagina- 
tion by  reason,  reality,  and  nature,  so  Bacon  led  philosophy  away 
from  the  one-sided  errors  of  reason  to  experience;  both,  with 
one  stroke,  renovated  the  two  branches  of  science  and  poetry 
by  this  renewed  bond  with  nature;  both,  disregarding  all  by- 
ways staked  everything  upon  this  "victory  in  the  race  between 
art  and  nature."  Just  as  Bacon  with  his  new  philosophy  is  linked 
with  the  natural  science  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  then  with  the 
latter  period  of  philosophy  in  western  Europe,  so  Shakespeare's 
drama  stands  in  relation  to  the  comedies  of  Plautus,  and  to  the 
stage  of  his  own  day.^ 

The  manner  in  which  Gervinus  associates  the  author  of  the 
*' Novum  Organum"  and  the  author  of  "  Hamlet"  is  notice- 
able. It  seems  hardly  credible  that  Englishmen  should  adopt 
Liebig's  violent  criticism  of  the  greatest  thinker  of  his  age, 
yet  several  pro-German  in  sentiment,  have  accepted  and  ad- 
vocated his  views. 2 

To  two  men.  Bacon  and  Descartes,  has  been  awarded  the 
distinction  of  being  pioneers  in  the  inauguration  of  modern 
philosophy.  If  Bacon's  philosophy  is  fallacious,  as  his  detrac- 
tors claim,  it  devolves  upon  them  to  show  by  what  jugglery  of 
logic  so  many  thinkers,  unquestionably  their  peers,  have  been 
led  to  regard  him  as  a  leader  in  the  reformation  of  modern 
science.  Certainly  the  spirit  of  his  philosophy  is  admirable ; 
the  construction  of  his  system  skilful,  and  the  eloquence  with 
which  he  interprets  it  unequalled. 

An  intimate  acquaintance  with  his  biographers,  and  with 
his  works,  will  alone  give  the  reader  an  adequate  conception  of 
the  genius  of  this  remarkable  Englishman,  whose  literary  tri- 
umphs in  the  world  of  thought  outshine  those  of  Drake  on  the 

^  Dr.  G.  G.  Gervinus,  Shakespeare  Commentaries ^  pp.  884,  885.  London, 
1883. 

2  Sir  David  Brewster.  Vide  Life  of  Newton^  London,  1855,  for  an  example 
of  misguided  zeal. 

300 


FRANCIS  BACON 

sea  in  augmenting  the  glory  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  Our  present 
purpose  is  not  to  attempt  an  extended  biography  of  Bacon, 
but  to  present  to  the  reader  a  sketch  of  the  salient  features  of 
his  life,  sufficient  for  a  proper  illustration  of  our  subject,  avoid- 
ing, if  possible,  exaggeration. 

We  have  been  surfeited  with  laudation  of  the  Stratford 
actor,  and  realize  that  should  Bacon  finally  be  accredited  with 
the  authorship  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  as  seems  likely, 
one  may  hardly  expect  a  more  sober  treatment  of  him.  That 
even  now  much  unwarranted  exaggeration  is  being  used  in 
praise  of  his  genius  is  painfully  evident.  Bacon  without  doubt 
was  the  greatest  genius  of  his  time,  and  all  the  merit  to  which 
he  is  entitled  should  be  accorded  him,  but  it  is  unwise  to  go 
beyond  reasonable  bounds.  The  human  mind  from  immemo- 
rial time  has  been  busy  thinking,  and  has  had  the  same  prob- 
lems of  life  to  deal  with  that  we  have.  One  thought  has  been 
added  to  another  until  some  scheme  of  philosophy,  a  steam 
engine,  an  anaesthetic,  a  phonograph,  has  been  perfected,  or 
nearly  perfected,  and  the  latest  mind  to  which  is  due  the 
finishing  stroke  receives  the  certificate  of  the  Patent  Office, 
accrediting  it  with  originality  of  invention ;  nevertheless,  the 
patentee  may  not  be  the  original  inventor,  since,  were  it  not 
for  some  one  mind  in  a  series  reaching  far  back  into  the  past; 
we  might  not  possess  to-day  the  perfected  thing  which  has 
received  the  stamp  of  the  Patent  Office. 

Bacon  has  had  the  credit  of  being  the  originator  of  the  in- 
ductive method  of  philosophy ;  but  the  nature  of  this  method 
is  so  lucidly  disclosed  by  Aristotle  as  to  be  unmistakable. 
Bacon,  however,  with  a  wider  vision  than  Aristotle's,  per- 
ceived how  it  could  be  fashioned  into  an  instnmient  for  guid- 
ing the  mind  through  doubt  and  confusion  to  wider  realms  of 
knowledge ;  in  fact,  he  likened  it  to  the  mariner's  compass,  and, 
though  he  called  it  new,  he  meant  that  it  was  new  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  used  it  as  a  universal  and  infallible  guide  to 
truer  thought. 

301 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

A  recent  writer,  Kropotkin/  discussing  mediaeval  science 
says  that  "Francis  Bacon,  Galileo,  and  Copernicus  were  the 
direct  descendants  of  a  Roger  Bacon,  and  a  Michael  Scot,  as 
the  steam  engine  was  a  direct  product  of  the  researches  carried 
on  in  the  Italian  universities  on  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere, 
and  of  the  mathematical  and  technical  learning  which  charac- 
terized Nuremberg";  and  that  mediaeval  science  had  done 
something  more  than  "  the  actual  discovery  of  new  principles 
which  we  know  at  the  present  time  in  mechanical  sciences ;  it 
had  accustomed  the  explorer  to  observe  facts  and  to  reason 
from  them.  It  had  inductive  science  even  though  it  had  not 
yet  fully  grasped  the  importance  and  the  powers  of  induction ; 
and  it  had  laid  the  foundations  of  both  mechanical  and  natural 
philosophy." 

Bacon  was  an  apostle  and  ardent  worker  in  experimental 
science,  but  not  the  "father"  of  it  as  some  aver.  It  had  been 
practiced  in  Europe  for  at  least  three  centuries  before  his  time. 
There  was  another  scientist,  Roger  Bacon,  whose  study  of  ex- 
plosives and  his  anticipations  in  physical  science  prove  him  to 
have  been  a  master  of  experimental  science  in  his  day.  Think 
of  this  from  his  Opus  Magnum:  He  is  discussing  explosive 
force  to  be  applied  to  navigation.  Is  it  not  prophetic  of  the 
gas  motor  ? 

Art  can  construct  instruments  of  navigation  such  that  the 
largest  vessels,  governed  by  a  single  man,  will  traverse  rivers  and 
seas  more  rapidly  than  if  they  were  filled  with  oarsmen.  One  may 
also  make  carriages  which,  without  the  aid  of  any  animal,  will 
run  with  remarkable  swiftness. 

His  studies  in  astronomy,  optics,  and  chemistry,  we  have 
not  space  to  discuss,  though  in  an  extended  biography  of 
Francis  Bacon  it  would  be  interesting  as  showing  his  indebt- 
edness to  Roger  Bacon,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Albertus  Magnus, 
and  other  scientists  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  none  of  these  was 

1  Mutual  Aid  a  Factor  of  Evolution^  p.  215.  New  York,  1902.  Cf.  Brother 
Potamian,  F.S.C.,  The  Makers  of  Electricity.   London,  1909. 

302 


FRANCIS  BACON 

the  "father"  of  experimental  science.  This  is  what  Roger 
Bacon  says  of  his  great  predecessor,  Petrus  Peregrinus,  who 
wrote  on  the  magnet  in  1269:  — 

I  know  of  only  one  person  who  deserves  praise  for  his  work  in 
experimental  philosophy,  for  he  does  not  care  for  the  discourses 
of  men  and  their  wordy  warfare,  but  quietly  and  diligently  pur- 
sues the  work  of  wisdom.  Therefore,  what  others  grope  after 
blindly,  as  bats  In  the  evening  twilight,  this  man  contemplates 
in  all  their  brilliancy  because  he  is  a  master  of  experiment.  Hence, 
he  knows  all  of  natural  science,  whether  pertaining  to  medicine 
and  alchemy,  or  to  matters  celestial  or  terrestrial.  He  has  worked 
diligently  In  the  smelting  of  ores,  as  also  In  the  working  of  min- 
erals; he  is  thoroughly  acquainted  with  all  sorts  of  arms  and  Im- 
plements used  In  military  service  and  In  hunting,  besides  which 
he  Is  skilled  In  agriculture  and  in  the  measurement  of  lands.  It  Is 
impossible  to  write  a  useful  or  correct  treatise  In  experimental 
philosophy  without  mentioning  this  man's  name.  Moreover,  he 
pursues  knowledge  for  its  own  sake;  for  if  he  wished  to  obtain 
royal  favor,  he  could  easily  find  sovereigns  who  would  honor  and 
enrich  him.^ 

Experimental  science,  however,  was  not  original  even  with 
Petrus,  as  could  be  shown  if  space  permitted,  and  it  were  pro- 
per to  tax  the  reader's  patience  further.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
it  is  unwise  to  claim  too  much  for  Francis  Bacon,  and  though 
his  genius  surpassed  that  of  his  day,  we  are  sure  to  be  criticized 
before  we  finish  for  according  him  more  than  his  due.  Let  us 
now  glance  briefly  at  the  outlines  of  his  career  before  taking 
up  the  consideration  of  his  works. 

If  WiUiam  Shakspere  of  Stratford  has  been  misrepresented 
and  abused,  as  some  aver,  Francis  Bacon  of  St.  Albans  has 
suffered  tenfold  more  from  misconception  and  slander.  Both, 
too,  have  been  extolled  beyond  measure  by  fervid  admirers. 
Bacon  was  nearly  four  years  the  senior  of  the  actor,  having 
been  born  in  London,  January  22,  1560-61. 

The  home  of  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon  and  his  wife  was  a  model 

^  James  J.  Walsh,  LL.D.,  The  Popes  and  Science,  p.  288.  New  York, 
1911. 

303 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

English  home  of  the  period.  Both  were  devoted  Puritans,  and 
their  household  was  ruled  in  accordance  with  the  strict  princi- 
ples of  that  faith.  The  official  position  held  by  Sir  Nicholas, 
that  of  Lord  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  his  high  reputation  for 
probity  and  learning,  and  the  literary  accomplishments  of 
his  wife,  who  was  noted  for  her  linguistic  attainments,  drew 
about  them  the  best  men  and  women  of  the  time.  It  was  in 
such  a  home,  pervaded  by  an  atmosphere  well  suited  to  their 
social,  intellectual,  and  religious  development,  that  Anthony 
Bacon  and  the  subject  of  this  sketch  were  reared. 

Lady  Bacon  was  the  governess  to  Prince  Edward,  the 
brother  of  Mary  and  Elizabeth,  and  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  her 
father,  was  his  tutor,  so  that  during  her  life  she  was  associated 
intimately  with  the  family  of  Henry  VIII.  Bacon's  remark- 
able wit  was  recognized  in  an  age  when  wit  was  practiced  as  a 
fine  art.  In  him  it  was  spontaneous,  and  from  the  evidence  of 
contemporaries  must  have  been  phenomenal.  In  early  youth 
he  was  under  influences  which  fostered  the  development  of 
this  inherent  talent.  It  was  in  the  family  of  Henry  VIII  that 
John  Heywood  occupied  the  position  of  Court  Jester.  Being 
of  good  family,  and  a  great  wit,  he  was  a  favorite  with  those 
who  frequented  the  court.  With  him  Lady  Bacon  was 
associated  in  the  King's  family,  and  later  in  the  service  of 
Mary  and  Elizabeth,  so  that  her  children  must  have  been 
familiar  with  his  witty  sayings.  We  shall  speak  of  Heywood 
later. 

Of  the  more  intimate  life  of  Francis  Bacon  during  his  early 
youth  we  can  say  little,  though  we  might  adopt  the  plan  of 
Knight,  and  associate  him  with  the  life  of  the  metropolis,  as 
well  as  with  that  of  Warwickshire  where  Lady  Bacon  had 
relatives  among  the  county  families,  which  made  him  and 
Anthony  familiar  with  that  interesting  county.  The  letters 
of  Lady  Bacon  reveal  to  us  that  her  motherly  care  of  them 
continued  as  long  as  she  was  able  to  exercise  it.  Such  notes  as 
this  accompanied  little  presents  of  game  or  fruit;  "I  trust  you, 

304 


FRANCIS  BACON 

with  your  servants,  use  prayer  twice  in  a  day";  and  "The 
Lord  direct  you  both  with  his  holy  spirit."  ^ 

Bacon  was  a  precocious  genius  from  his  earliest  years.  At 
the  age  of  ten  Rawley  tells  us,  "That  he  delivered  himself 
with  that  gravity  and  maturity  above  his  years,  that  Her 
Majesty  would  often  term  him  *The  young  Lord  Keeper.'" 

It  is  a  suggestive  fact  that  his  bust  was  made  before  he 
was  twelve  years  of  age  and  his  portrait  painted  before  the 
age  of  eighteen.  Anthony  Bacon,  a  most  promising  youth, 
and  older  than  Francis,  was  never  honored  by  bust  or  por- 
trait. 

Under  the  rigid  tuition  of  Lady  Bacon  he  was  able  to 
enter  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  at  the  age  of  twelve  years 
and  three  months,  where  he  studied  under  the  stern  Whitgift; 
three  years  later  he  was  admitted  with  Anthony  "de  societate 
Magistorum"  at  Gray's  Inn.  Rawley  tells  us  that  about  this 
time  he  had  discarded  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  because  of 
its  "unfruitfulness,"  though  he  had  a  high  regard  for  the  in- 
tellectual ability  of  its  author.^  At  sixteen  he  was  sent  by  the 
Queen  to  France,  where,  under  the  diplomatic  tutelage  of  Sir 
Amias  Paulet,  he  spent  several  years  in  the  splendid  but  cor- 
rupt court  of  Henry  III,  having  ample  opportunity,  of  which 
he  availed  himself,  to  study  the  political  craft  of  Catholic  and 
Huguenot,  visiting  their  camps,  and  acquainting  himself  with 
their  leaders  and  their  motives,  all  the  while  subject  to  the 
wiles  of  the  beautiful  and  frail  women  of  Henry's  licentious 
court,  who  took  delight  in  striving  to  make  conquest  of  the 
witty  and  virile  young  Englishman,  who,  living  in  the  pure 
atmosphere  of  Lady  Paulet's  English  home,  which  she  had 
transplanted  into  that  rank  soil,  was,  like  another  Adonis, 
proof  against  the  glamour  of  illicit  love,  though  it  would  not  be 
strange,  if  it  were  true,  that  he  lost  his  heart  to  Margaret  of 

*  James  Spedding,  The  Letters  and  the  Life  of  Francis  Bacon,  vol.  i,  pp.  113, 
119.  London,  1861. 

2  Spedding,  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  37  ^f  seq. 

30s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Valois,  the  young  queen  of  this  court  of  beauty,  for  it  has 
been  said  that  no  man  could  resist  her  fascinations. 

Paulet  arrived  at  Calais,  September  25,  1576,  proceeding 
with  his  entourage  directly  to  the  French  Court,  and  Bacon, 
then  in  his  seventeenth  year,  with  an  intellect  of  abnormal 
activity,  a  mind  stored  with  the  learning  of  the  age,  confident 
in  himself,  and  fearless  in  expressing  his  opinions  though  they 
failed  to  coincide  with  scholastic  precedents,  came  at  once  into 
an  atmosphere  wholly  novel  to  him  except  in  dreams.  He  had 
come  from  a  court  where  the  vehicles  of  thought  were  cumber- 
some and  unwieldy,  in  which  the  best  educated  and  most 
polished  courtiers  surrounding  royalty  held  poetry  and  art  in 
light  esteem. 

In  a  work  which  has  been  ascribed  to  Bacon  we  find  this :  — 

It  is  hard  to  find  in  these  days  of  noblemen  or  gentlemen  any 
good  mathematician,  or  excellent  musician,  or  notable  philoso- 
pher, or  else  a  cunning  poet.  I  know  very  many  notable  gentle- 
men in  the  Court  that  have  written  commendably  and  suppressed 
it  again,  or  suffered  it  to  be  published  without  their  own  names 
to  it,  as  if  it  were  a  discredit  for  a  gentleman  to  seem  learned,  and 
to  show  himself  amorous  of  any  good  art.  The  scorn  and  ordi- 
nary disgrace  offered  unto  poets  in  these  days  is  cause  why  few 
gentlemen  do  delight  in  the  art.^ 

Sidney  about  the  same  time  speaks  of  "  Idle  England  which 
now  can  scarce  endure  the  pain  of  a  pen,"  and  "poetry  is  fallen 
to  be  the  laughing-stock  of  children."  ^  This  may  seem  exag- 
gerated, but  it  is  certainly  significant  of  the  intellectual  con- 
dition of  England  in  the  sixteenth  century,  especially  in  its 
application  to  belles-lettres. 

In  the  Court  of  France  Bacon  found  a  life  vibrant  with  the 
spirit  imparted  to  it  by  Ronsard,  chief  of  that  tuneful  fellow- 
ship, the  Pleiade,  whose  ambition  it  was  to  rival  Homer  and 
Virgil,  but  whose  seat  of  honor  in  public  esteem  was  then  be- 
ing shared  by  Du  Bartas,  then  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame;  in 

^  George  Puttenham,  The  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  p.  4  et  seq.   London,  1869. 
2  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Defense  of  Poesie,  pp.  no,  62.   London. 


FRANCIS   BACON 

fact,  the  soul  of  this  English  youth,  upon  whom  Rawley  says, 
"there  was  a  beam  of  knowledge  derived  from  God,"  re- 
sponded to  the  music  of  the  sonnets  and  hymns,  and  odes  of 
the  "Immortals"  who  dominated  France,  and  inspired  him  to 
bear  to  his  own  countrymen  that  torch,  which,  first  lighted  in 
Italy,  was  now  irradiating  France. 

In  Du  Bartas,  Baif,  D'Aubigne,  and  others  of  that  type,  he 
found  congenial  spirits.  Ronsard  was  still  living,  but  his  rival, 
Du  Bellay,  was  no  more.  His  works,  however,  survived,  and  it 
is  a  suggestive  fact  that  in  1591  appeared  the  "Ruines  of 
Rome"  ascribed  to  Spenser.  This  was  a  translation  of  Du 
Bellay's  "Antiquites  de  Rome,"  and  it  is  said  had  been  circu- 
lating anonymously  in  manuscript  according  to  a  common 
custom  of  the  time.^ 

Bacon  has  shared  with  others  the  honor  of  being  a  leader  in 
the  literary  awakening  of  England  in  the  later  years  of  the 
sixteenth,  and  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  centuries. 
Says  Ben  Jonson,  "About  his  time  were  all  the  wits  born  that 
could  honour  a  language."  It  is  true  that  already  some  beams 
of  the  quickening  light  of  the  Renaissance  had  found  their  way 
across  the  Channel,  but  of  late,  as  his  life  has  been  more 
closely  studied,  it  is  coming  to  be  acknowledged  that  Bacon 
was  the  Ariosto  who  bore  aloft  the  torch  which  ushered  its 
fuller  glories  into  England.  It  is  this  which  we  must  bear  in 
mind  whenever  we  undertake  to  study  the  so-called  secret  of 
his  life. 

It  is  instructive  to  note  how  closely  the  enthusiastic  youth 
followed  the  rules  of  the  Pleiade:  "They  are  to  accustom 
themselves  to  long  and  weary  studies,  to  imitate  good  authors, 
not  merely  in  Greek  and  Latin,  but  in  Italian,  Spanish,  or  any 
other  tongue  where  they  may  be  found " ;  nor  did  he  fail  to 
remember  that  striking  phrase  in  the  rules,  ''Car  ces  sont  les 

^  We  are  aware  of  the  claim,  often  repeated,  that  the  translator  of  the  Ruins 
of  Rome  was  identical  with  the  translator  from  the  Antiquites^  of  The  Theatre 
for  Worldlings  in  1569,  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  this. 

307 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

ailes  dont  les  escripts  des  hommes  volent  aux  ciels^'  which  later 
appeared  in  the  drama  of  Henry  VI ,  "  For  knowledge  is  the 
wing  wherewith  we  fly  to  heaven/'  So  closely  did  he  follow 
the  rules  we  have  quoted  that  he  was  obliged  to  deny  himself 
to  friends  who  called  upon  him  at  Gray's  Inn  because  of  his 
close  application  to  study.  We  know  how  he  appeared  at  this 
time,  for  it  was  on  his  return  from  France  that  his  portrait 
was  painted  by  Hilliard  bearing  the  inscription,  "Sz  tabula 
dignat  animum  mallem''  ("If  we  could  but  paint  his  mind"), 
a  sentiment  which  long  after  Ben  Jonson  used  in  his  lines  on 
the  Droeshout  portrait  of  the  Stratford  actor.  Was  it  not 
natural  for  this  splendid  youth,  who  saw  in  progress  with  his 
own  eyes  what  Saintsbury  saw  completed  later,  that  "The 
whole  literature  of  the  French  nation,  at  a  time  when  it  was 
wonderfully  abundant  and  vigorous,"  was  being  "Ronsard- 
ised,"  to  ask.  Why  should  not  the  literature  of  the  English 
nation  be  Baconized.^  Here  is  the  secret  of  Bacon's  life,  and 
we  shall  see  how  by  methods,  often  indirect,  he  accomplished 
his  purpose,  though  insurmountable  obstacles  lay  across  his 
path. 

That  he  was  the  moving  and  directing  spirit  in  that  ad- 
vancement of  learning  in  England  in  the  sixteenth  century 
which  has  been  entitled  the  Renaissance,  there  is  constantly 
accumulating  evidence.  It  is  strikingly  significant  that  this 
movement  was  spanned  by  his  life,  and,  unlike  the  Renaissance 
elsewhere  in  Europe,  was  confined  to  literature,  his  favorite 
field  of  activity.  Neither  in  architecture,  painting,  nor  sculp- 
ture did  it  find  expression  by  native  genius  in  any  degree  con- 
mensurate  with  that  which  it  found  in  literature.  Where  is 
there  a  single  great  name  to  prove  the  contrary  ?  When  genius 
was  wanted  in  these  arts  it  was  imported.  Each  of  them 
needed  a  Bacon  of  whom  Garnett  has  said:  "Even  more  than 
Milton's  'his  soul  was  like  a  star  and  dwelt  apart.'"  ^ 

^  Richard  Garnettj  C.B.,  LL.D.,  ei  al.,  English  Literature,  vol.  ii,  p.  7.  New 
York,  191 2. 

308 


FRANCIS  BACON 

It  may  be  well  here  to  speak  of  the  significant  fact  that 
North,  the  pioneer  translator  into  English  of  "Plutarch's 
Lives,"  was  with  Bacon  when  attached  to  Paulet's  embassy 
at  the  Court  of  France,  and  was  then  about  to  publish  his 
work.  With  this  undertaking  Bacon  must  have  been  familiar. 
It  is  from  Plutarch  that  so  much  material  was  drawn  for  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works. 

His  sojourn  abroad  was  terminated  by  the  death  of  Sir 
Nicholas  Bacon,  whose  principal  estate  passed  to  children  of 
a  former  marriage,  and  Anthony  who  received  a  considerable 
inheritance.  So  small  was  the  amount  received  by  Francis  that 
he  was  straitened  for  means  of  subsistence.  Equipped  as  he 
was,^and  possessing  a  facile  knowledge  of  French,  Italian,  and 
Spanish,  one  might  well  wonder  why  the  all-powerful  Burgh- 
ley  did  not  avail  himself  of  his  talents,  but  preferred  to  leave 
him  to  his  own  resources,  thereby,  to  use  his  own  words,  driv- 
ing him  against  the  "bent  of  his  genius"  to  the  humdrimi  of 
the  law  for  a  livelihood. 

The  reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek.  In  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth ambition  and  jealousy  of  a  virulent  type  flourished  with- 
out let;  indeed,  they  seem  to  have  been  esteemed  virtues  by 
the  mass  of  men.  Never  was  the  political  game  played  for 
higher  stakes,  too  often  involving  life  and  death.  The  "Great 
Burghley,"  Elizabeth's  Bismarck,  directed  all  the  movements 
with  relentless  persistence.  Even  the  Queen,  wilful,  fickle,  re- 
vengeful, and  jealous  of  her  royal  prerogatives,  was  guided  by 
him  in  all  her  moves,  and  though  on  several  occasions  she  at- 
tempted to  act  independently,  she  was  ever  brought  to  see  that 
the  wiser  part  was  to  follow  the  lead  of  a  better  player  than 
herself.  Never  were  the  gates  to  political  preferment  more 
strongly  barred.  Burghley  and  his  sickly,  crafty  son  held  the 
keys,  and  only  those  whom  they  favored  could  hope  to  pass ; 
thus  it  happened  that  some  of  the  honorably  ambitious  and 
able  young  men,  whom  the  Queen  perhaps  smiled  upon,  failed 
to  obtain  preferment,  being  for  various  reasons,  known  only 

309 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

to  her  and  her  astute  minister,  undesirable.  Such  was  Francis 
Bacon,  and  he  must  have  experienced  painful  disappointment, 
when,  leaving  the  stimulating  activities  of  foreign  courts, 
where  he  had  held  honored  place,  not  only  among  princes  but 
in  the  regard  of  some  of  the  leaders  of  European  thought,  he 
suddenly  found  himself  hampered  by  the  restraining  influence 
of  those  holding  political  power.  From  what  we  know  of  this 
brilliant,  enthusiastic,  and  aspiring  youth,  we  can  but  think 
that  they  would  regard  him  as  one  the  wings  of  whose  ambi- 
tion it  would  be  safer  to  keep  properly  clipped. 

From  his  return  to  England  until  the  i6th  of  September, 
1580,  we  know  practically  nothing  of  him,  except  from  the 
"Immerito"  letters  to  his  friend,  Gabriel  Harvey,  which  we 
claim  to  have  been  attributed  erroneously  to  Edmund  Spenser. 
On  that  date  he  wrote  Lady  Burghley  requesting  her  to  speak 
favorably  of  a  suit  he  had  preferred  to  her  husband.  He  also 
addressed  Lord  Burghley  the  same  day  on  the  subject.  We 
should  be  glad  to  know  what  was  the  subject  of  this  suit, 
which  we  learn  from  the  letter  he  had  verbally  preferred  to 
Burghley.  That  it  was  "rare  and  unaccustomed''  and  might 
appear  altogether  "indiscreet  and  unadvised,"  we  also  learn, 
as  well  as  that  his  hope  of  attaining  it  rested  upon  Burghley's 
"grace  with  Her  Majesty,  who  needeth  never  to  call  for  the 
experience  of  the  thing,  when  she  hath  so  great  and  so  good 
experience  of  the  person  which  recommendeth  it."  Was  this 
a  suit  for  office,  as  some  of  Bacon's  critics  have  offensively 
claimed.? — though  why  he  should  not  sue  for  employment  as 
everybody  else  was  obliged  to,  we  fail  to  understand.  The 
object  of  this  suit,  however,  has  never  been  explained  by  any 
of  his  biographers,  though  curiosity  with  regard  to  it  has  been 
expressed.  Spedding  says  that  "It  seems  to  have  been  so  far 
out  of  the  common  way  as  to  require  an  apology."  That  it 
was  for  something  in  the  nature  of  an  experiment  is  implied 
by  the  language;  if  for  office  would  it  have  been  called 
"rare"? 

310 


FRANCIS  BACON 

The  next  letter  is  dated  October  i8,  thanking  him  for  pre- 
senting his  suit  to  the  Queen.  Spedding  suggests  that  this  suit 
may  have  been  "for  some  employment  as  a  lawyer/'  but  this 
seems  doubtful,  for  when  he  wrote  this  letter  to  Burghley,  he 
was  but  twenty  years  of  age.  Spedding  says  that  "From  this 
time  we  have  no  further  news  of  Francis  Bacon  till  the  9th  of 
April,  1582."  This  date  he  gets  from  a  letter  to  Anthony 
Bacon  in  which  his  correspondent  speaks  of  having  seen 
Francis;^  hence  he  infers  that  during  this  period  he  was  at 
Gray's  Inn  pursuing  his  legal  studies.  There  is  evidence,  how- 
ever, that  he  was  permitted  to  go  abroad ;  ^  if  so,  having  made 
many  acquaintances  in  the  countries  he  had  visited  only  a 
short  time  before,  he  would  naturally  associate  himself  with 
the  men  who  were  devoting  their  lives  to  the  great  object 
which  was  nearest  his  heart.  The  evidence  that  he  did  so 
becomes  clearer  as  contemporary  documents  are  studied. 

There  is  an  undated  letter  to  him  from  Sir  Thomas  Bodley, 
the  founder  of  the  Bodleian  Library,  in  response  to  one  dated 
at  Orleans,  "October  19th,"  the  year  unnamed,  which  has 
hitherto  been  supposed  to  have  been  written  him  in  December, 
1577,  while  he  was  with  Paulet  at  the  French  Court.  In  it 
Bodley  advises  him  that  he  has  forwarded  him  thirty  pounds 
sterling,  which  he  tells  him  is  for  his  "present  supply."  It 
would  seem  that  other  remittances  were  intended,  for  he  de- 
sires him  to  observe  carefully  the  countries  through  which  he 
traveled,  and  to  learn  their  customs,  laws,  religion,  commerce; 
in  fact,  everything  concerning  them,  and,  he  adds,  if  "You 
will  give  me  any  advertisement  of  your  commodities  in  these 
kinds,  I  will  make  you  as  liberal  a  return  from  myself  and 
your  friends  there  as  I  shall  be  able."  It  would  appear  from 
this  that  Bacon  was  being  supplied  with  funds  by  friends  for  a 
special  purpose.  That  this  letter  could  not  have  been  written 
from  the  Court  in  1577  is  seen  from  this  extract  from  Bodley's 

^  Birch,  Memorials,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  22.   Cf.  Spedding,  Life  and  Letters. 
2  Histoire  Naturelle  de  M.  Frangois  Bacon.  Paris,  1631. 

3" 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

autobiography:  "I  departed  out  of  England  anno  1576,  and 
continued  very  neare  foure  yeares  abroad." 

There  seems  no  good  reason  why  friends  should  have  been 
supplying  young  Francis  with  funds  when  attached  to  Paulet's 
embassy.  Sir  Nicholas,  who  was  wealthy,  greatly  attached  to 
him,  and  influential  with  Elizabeth,  hardly  would  have  per- 
mitted this.  It  seems  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  this 
letter  was  written  later,  rather  than  in  1577. 

There  is  a  paper  once  belonging  to  Bacon  containing  notes 
on  the  state  of  Europe  which  are  just  what  Bodley  desired 
Bacon  to  gather  for  him,  and  Spedding  places  its  date  in  1582. 
It  seems,  therefore,  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  Bacon 
was  abroad  between  1580  and  1582,  and,  if  so,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  was  to  advance  the  cause  which  he  had  under- 
taken soon  after  returning  from  his  earlier  journey.  Was  this 
cause  the  "rare  and  unaccustomed"  subject  of  his  suit  to  the 
Queen  through  Burghley?  Was  he  so  "indiscreet  and  unad- 
vised" as  to  solicit  Burghley's  support  in  a  scheme  for  the 
advancement  of  learning  in  England,  with  all  that  such  a  pro- 
ject implied .f*  Burghley  was  interested  in  letters;  so  was  the 
Queen,  who  was  proud  of  her  literary  attainments,  and  even 
Leicester,  who  was  then  smarting  from  his  experiences  in  the 
French  marriage  fiasco,  and  coquetting  with  the  Puritans,  was 
in  a  frame  of  mind  which  for  the  moment  might  have  disposed 
him  favorably  to  almost  any  diversion.  All  London  was  in  a 
turmoil;  the  French  were  feared  because  of  the  insult  that 
Elizabeth  had  given  them;  in  fact,  England's  foreign  relations 
were  in  a  parlous  condition,  which  would  have  made  it  con- 
venient for  the  Queen  to  have  a  man  like  Bacon,  conversant 
with  the  languages  of  her  neighbors,  in  a  position  to  take  ob- 
servations of  them  at  short  range.  As  for  him  he  would  be  en- 
abled to  renew  his  acquaintances  with  old  friends,  and  cement 
more  firmly  his  relations  with  the  Rosicrucian  brotherhood  of 
which  we  hope  to  show  he  was  a  member.  Of  such  a  jour- 
ney, however,  our  evidence  is  circumstantial,  though  a  recent 

312 


FRANCIS  BACON 

writer,  adopting  a  diary  accredited  to  Montaigne,  has  given 
an  itinerary  of  his  travels  incognito  in  France  and  Italy  with 
the  supposed  author.^  If  he  made  this  journey  it  adds  an  ad- 
ditional interest  to  the  "Immerito"  letters  of  which  we  shall 
speak  later. 

If  Bacon  was  abroad  at  any  time  between  1580  and  1582,  he 
was  at  home  on  June  27th  of  the  latter  year,  for  upon  that 
date  he  was  made  an  Utter  Barrister  at  Gray's  Inn.  The  in- 
timate relations  existing  between  him  and  the  Queen  are  dis- 
closed by  a  letter  of  advice  written  to  her  two  years  later. 
That  the  imperious  Elizabeth  should  have  received  it  gra- 
ciously is  evidence  of  her  high  regard  for  his  talents.  In  ac- 
cordance with  her  habit  of  applying  nicknames  to  those  about 
her  she  called  Bacon  her  "watch-candle." 

At  twenty-four  he  was  in  Parliament.  Seven  years  had 
passed  since  he  returned  from  the  French  Court,  and  we  know 
little  of  him  during  this  period.  That  this  indefatigable 
worker,  who  counted  the  moments  of  life  as  precious,  was  not 
idle  we  may  be  sure,  and,  as  the  love  of  letters  was  ever  a  pas- 
sion with  him,  we  may  not  doubt  that  he  found  solace,  as  well 
as  pecuniary  profit  which  he  sorely  needed,  in  literary  pur- 
suits. That  he  was  disappointed  in  not  receiving  recognition 
from  the  Queen  cannot  be  doubted.  He  had  been  reared  with 
the  expectation  of  filling  high  places  in  public  life,  of  which  he 
had  had  a  taste  during  his  residence  abroad  with  Paulet,  who 
had  written  the  Queen  unstinted  praises  of  his  merits,  telling 
her  that  he  was  "of  great  hope,  endued  with  many  good  and 
singular  parts,"  who,  "if  God  gave  him  life,  would  prove  a 
very  able  and  sufficient  subject  to  do  her  Highness  good  and 
acceptable  service."  This  was  certainly  high  praise  from  the 
prudent  ambassador,  and  should  have  had  effect;  but  it  fell 
upon  irresponsive  ears.  He  had  seen  tricky  and  malicious  men 
like  Cecil,  or  coarse  and  vulgar  ones  like  his  rival.  Coke,  both 

^  Bacon  in  France  and  Italy,  Baconiana,  vol.  ix,  pp.  50,  177.  Cf.  Preface, 
Histoire  Naturelle^  etc. 

313 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

his  life-long  enemies,  advanced  to  important  positions,  who, 
forgetting  public  duty,  prostituted  them  to  ignoble  ends,  and 
he  could  but  have  felt  the  injustice  done  him.  Yet  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Burghley,  Leicester,  and  Cecil,  that  grim 
triumvirate  behind  the  throne,  they  must  have  had  reason  to 
distrust  him.  They  had  seen  him  in  youth  a  student,  dreamer, 
poet,  and  philosopher  in  embryo,  which  betokened  in  maturity 
a  man  of  ideas,  of  independent  thought,  who  might  not  always 
conform  to  the  political  order  in  which  they,  secure  in  the 
luxury  of  power,  wanted  no  suggestion  of  change.  This  he 
understood,  and  if  in  later  life  he  wrote  an  appreciation  of 
Burghley  in  which  he  recognized  his  statesmanship,  so  con- 
spicuous to  all,  and  commended  him  for  advancing  many  who 
showed  ability  in  maintaining  the  government  to  which  he 
himself  was  loyal,  and  which  Burghley  so  adorned,  it  is  not 
strange ;  he  was  great  enough  for  that,  and  also  for  extolling 
the  Queen,  who,  though  destructive  of  popular  liberty,  was 
successful  in  political  power. 

It  was  the  attitude  of  those  in  power  that  justifies  Anthony 
Bacon's  sarcastic  criticism  of  the  closing  days  of  this  reign:  — 

Cog,  lie,  flatter  and  face 
Four  ways  in  Court  to  win  you  grace; 
If  you  be  thrall  to  none  of  these, 
Away,  good  Piers!  Home,  John  Cheese! 

The  writer  is  aware  that  the  view  here  advanced  of  the 
Queen  and  those  who  guided  her  is  not  in  accord  with  some 
authors,  and  that  instances  can  be  cited  to  show  that  Burgh- 
ley, and  even  Cecil,  extended  a  friendly  hand  to  him  on  occa- 
sions, for  it  was,  and  still  is,  a  political  maxim,  that  it  is  wiser 
to  toss  a  scrap  of  meat  to  a  barking  dog  than  to  kick  him. 

That  Burghley  was  on  friendly  and  familiar  relations  with 
Bacon,  admired  his  brilliant  talents,  and  even  possessed  his 
respect  and  admiration,  seems  evident;  yet  it  is  equally  ap- 
parent that  he  was  instrumental  in  barring  his  way  to  pre- 
ferment.   These  seeming  contradictions  lead  to  conflicting 

314 


FRANCIS  BACON 

opinions.  Burghley's  attitude,  and  others  about  Elizabeth 
whose  opinions  she  shared,  may  most  readily  be  accounted  for 
by  reflecting  upon  Bacon's  own  attitude  toward  the  repressive 
and  unjust  policies  which  they  fostered.  He  was  a  Progressive 
in  an  age  of  hide-bound  Conservatism,  and  favored  views 
which  though  moderate  were  more  startling  to  Burghley  and 
his  colleagues  than  the  most  radical  theories  of  to-day  are  to 
the  "stand-patter''  and  pick-thanks  of"  predatory  interests." 
They  could  but  distrust  him,  and  though  they  might  maintain 
those  amicable  relations  not  uncommon  among  politicians  of 
widely  different  views,  they  were  bound  to  limit  his  opportuni- 
ties for  mischief;  besides,  he  must  have  been  suspected  of  be- 
ing an  anonymous  writer  of  a  type  of  literature  distasteful  to 
staid  pragmatists  and  complacent  courtiers.  He  himself  de- 
nominates his  assumed  disguise  a  "despised  weed,"  using  the 
word  in  its  then  common  acceptation  of  garb  or  vestment. 
But  even  if  he  had  not  been  radical,  or  a  writer  of  masques  and 
other  trashy  literature,  —  for  he  had  not  then  gone  afield  in 
philosophy,  —  he  possessed  traits  of  character  which  did  not 
commend  him  to  the  exalted  positions  to  which  he  aspired. 
Were  not  all  these  sufficient  to  account  for  the  attitude  of 
those  in  power?  It  would  seem,  however,  from  a  letter  to 
Burghley  in  1591,  that  Burghley  had  aided  him  in  some  de- 
gree, for  we  find  him  addressing  him  as  "  the  second  founder  of 
my  poor  estate."  In  it  he  says,  "I  have  vast  contemplative 
ends,  and  moderate  civil  ends ;  for  I  have  taken  all  knowledge 
to  be  my  province";  and  "philanthropia  is  so  far  fixed  in  my 
mind  that  it  cannot  be  removed."  He  playfully  threatens  that 
"if  your  Lordship  will  not  carry  me  on,"  I  will  "become  some 
sorry  bookmaker."  This  is  remarkable  language  to  a  man  like 
Burghley,  unless  there  was  some  common  interest  between 
them,  and  knowing  now  what  we  know  of  Bacon's  literary 
activities,  it  is  presumable  that  Burghley  had  some  interest  in 
them.  Authors  found  difficulty  in  getting  their  books  pub- 
lished, and  relied  upon  the  liberality  of  those  to  whom  they 

31S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

were  dedicated.  Many  books  circulated  in  manuscript,  some 
of  which,  finding  a  patron,  finally  reached  the  printing-press. 
This  was  the  case  with  the  "Shakespeare"  Sonnets.  "The  Arte 
of  English  Poesie,"  which  was  published  by  Vantrollier  in 
1589,  now  attributed  to  Bacon,  was  dedicated  to  Burghley, 
who,  if  he  followed  the  usual  custom,  contributed  to  the  cost  of 
publishing.  This  would  make  the  meaning  of  the  letter  more 
apparent;  make  it,  indeed,  quite  clear  if  his  suit  had  been  for 
royal  countenance,  perhaps  assistance,  in  some  literary  un- 
dertaking. There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  the  Queen  and 
Burghley  knew  of  part  of  Bacon's  literary  work.  He  would 
keep,  of  course,  his  work  for  the  theaters  from  them,  though, 
at  times,  they  might  have  had  their  suspicions  aroused;  in 
fact,  there  is  evidence  of  this  as  we  shall  see. 

Having  reached  the  House  of  Commons,  Bacon  no  doubt 
expected  to  find  his  way  to  higher  position.  He  believed  in 
the  right  of  the  Commons,  and  this  cause  he  espoused,  thereby 
justifying  the  course  of  those  in  power  toward  him.  How 
Burghley  and  Cecil  must  have  chafed  when  they  heard  this 
eloquent  speaker  oppose  legislation  which  they  proposed ;  ad- 
vert to  corruptions  in  the  State,  advocate  free  Parliaments, 
and  many  other  things  commonplace  enough  now,  but  shock- 
ing to  the  conservatism  of  his  age.  This  was  bad  enough,  but 
when  he  went  so  far  as  to  declare  publicly  in  the  House  to 
the  Queen's  counsel,  sergeants,  and  barristers,  that  laws  were 
made  to  guard  the  rights  of  the  Commons,  and  not  to  feed  the 
lawyers,  and  should  be  made  so  as  to  be  read  and  understood 
by  all,  that  they  should  be  reformed  by  curtailment  and  vital- 
ized by  equity,  he  brought  a  storm  upon  his  head.  A  few  days 
later  he  was  censured  by  Burghley  and  Puckering. 

But  he  was  not  to  be  intimidated,  and  when  Burghley  pro- 
posed an  extraordinary  tax  to  be  levied  annually  for  three 
years,  and,  supported  by  the  peers,  demanded  concurrent  ac- 
tion of  the  Commons,  Bacon  alone  demurred,  though  Coke 
had  been  instructed  by  Burleigh,  in  the  name  of  the  Queen,  to 

316 


FRANCIS  BACON 

quell  all  opposition.  What!  oppose  a  tax!  They  stared  at  one 
another  in  dismay !  Yet  money  must  be  raised  for  the  public 
needs.  Bacon  calmly  called  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the 
fact  that  the  Peers  had  transcended  their  powers ;  that  to  give 
was  the  prerogative  of  the  Commons,  to  dictate  the  amount 
was  not  within  the  province  of  the  Lords,  and  advised  against 
conference  upon  the  bill  they  had  framed.  He  presented  a 
carefully  written  answer  to  the  Lords  which,  after  reference 
to  a  committee  who  could  not  agree,  and  violent  debates  in 
the  Commons,  was  adopted  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  Burgh- 
ley.  Threatened  with  the  consequences,  he  maintained  the 
legality  of  his  position,  and  the  result  was  a  reduction  of  the 
tax. 

We  must  not  suppose  by  his  action  as  a  legislator  that 
Bacon  was  a  radical  in  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  term. 
He  fully  believed  in  the  divine  right  of  the  monarch  to  rule, 
and  could  never  have  questioned  the  royal  prerogative.  If  we 
keep  this  in  mind  we  shall  better  understand  the  conservative 
attitude  which  he  observ^ed  on  all  questions  relating  to  govern- 
ment. His  espousal  of  the  popular  cause  touched  only  legisla- 
tion which  ran  counter  to  principles  of  law. 

Bacon's  service  in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  which  he  was 
returned  by  different  constituencies  for  several  sessions,  cov- 
ered tho^e  stirring  times  when  the  great  seamen  of  England 
were  making  their  discoveries  in  the  New  World;  the  war 
which  ended  the  sea  power  of  Spain  by  the  destruction  of  her 
** invincible  Armada";  the  agitation  over  the  Queen  of  Scots, 
and  other  matters  of  the  greatest  importance  to  his  country. 
In  this  service  he  won  distinction  as  an  orator  and  statesman, 
but  lost  all  hope  of  advancement  by  the  Crown. 

Myths  are  known  to  every  student  who  enters  the  shadowy 
precincts  of  history  as  having  charmed  lives.  Though  laid  for 
a  time  they  are  sure  to  reappear  to  vex  the  unwary,  and,  as 
Bacon  was  a  man  so  great  and  many-sided,  we  shall  meet 
with  them  in  pursuing  his  life  story,  especially  where  it  be- 

317 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

comes  involved  in  the  mazes  of  the  Essex  Rebellion  and  the 
unfortunate  chancellorship. 

Just  when  Francis  Bacon  became  intimate  with  Essex  is 
conjectural.  In  1586  he  became  a  bencher  at  Gray's  Inn, 
which  gave  him  the  right  to  practice  before  the  courts  at 
Westminster,  and  probably  before  this,  though  some  writers  fix 
the  date  several  years  later,  he  became  a  friend  of  Essex,  who, 
as  early  as  1585,  was  General-of-the-Horse  under  Leicester, 
and  soon  after  became  conspicuous  at  the  Court.  The  friend- 
ship between  the  two  was  close,  and  for  several  years  before 
the  fall  of  the  brave  and  brilliant  Essex,  he  and  Anthony 
Bacon  were  closely  attached  to  his  interests.  The  latter  had 
been  for  many  years  in  the  foreign  diplomatic  service ;  in  Paris 
in  1580,  and  later  in  Geneva,  Bordeaux,  Montauban,  and  else- 
where until  1589-90.  He  was  therefore  well  fitted  to  conduct 
the  political  affairs  of  the  ambitious  young  nobleman.  With 
Francis  he  carried  on  a  Scriptorium,  or  Literary  Bureau,  in 
which  a  number  of  copyists  and  translators  found  employ- 
ment, among  them,  at  different  times,  being  John  Davies,  Ben 
Jonson,  Hobbes,  Thomas  Bushell,  Peter  Boener,  probably 
Peele,  Marlowe,  and  other  "good  pens,"  as  Francis  was  wont 
to  designate  them. 

The  true  story  of  Essex  has  not  yet  been  related,  but  we  shall 
attempt  to  tell  it  later.  Bacon  was  not  a  party  to  his  schemes, 
and  did  what  he  could  to  dissuade  him  from  his  dangerous 
course,  which  caused  a  coolness  between  them.  In  his  anger 
Essex  ungenerously  charged  him  with  having  written  letters  in 
his  name  to  help  him  with  the  Queen,  to  which  he  replied  that 
"he  had  spent  more,  however,  to  make  him  a  great  servant  to 
her  Majesty  than  ever  he  deserved,  for  anything  contained  in 
these  letters,  they  would  not  blush  in  the  clearest  light." 

When  the  unfortunate  Earl  was  finally  arrested  and  put  on 
his  trial,  the  Queen  craftily  compelled  Bacon  to  act  as  coun- 
sel for  the  Crown,  greatly  to  his  distaste;  in  fact,  he  wrote 
her  that,  "If  she  would  be  pleased  to  spare  me,  in  my  Lord  of 

318 


FRANCIS  BACON 

Essex  cause,  out  of  a  consideration  she  took  of  my  obliga- 
tion towards  him,  I  should  reckon  it  for  one  of  her  greatest 
favors."  ^ 

It  was  a  trying  position  for  him,  for  the  treason  with  which 
Essex  was  charged  was  a  matter  of  public  knowledge.  His 
management  of  the  case  is  above  reproach  when  studied  in 
connection  with  the  law  and  evidence.  Campbell,  whose  preju- 
dice, or  carelessness,  is  too  often  apparent,  perhaps  unwit- 
tingly misrepresents  him.  He  says :  — 

To  deprive  him  of  all  chance  of  acquittal  or  of  mercy  .  .  . 
Bacon  most  artfully  and  inhumanly  compared  him  to  the  Duke 
de  Guise.  .  .  .  The  Queen  wished  a  pamphlet  to  be  written  to 
prove  that  Essex  was  properly  put  to  death  ...  as  In  the  case 
of  the  Queen  of  Scots  she  was  suffering  from  a  too  late  repentance 
.  .  .  and  she  selected  Francis  Bacon  to  write  it.  He  without 
hesitation  undertook  the  task,  pleased  "that  her  majesty  had 
taken  a  liking  of  his  pen,"  and  with  his  usual  Industry  and  ability, 
soon  produced  "A  Declaration  of  the  Practices  and  Treasons  of 
Robert,  late  Earl  of  Essex."  No  honourable  man  would  purchase 
Bacon's  subsequent  elevation  at  the  price  of  being  the  author 
of  this  publication.  .  .  .  The  base  ingratitude  and  the  slavish 
meanness  manifested  by  Bacon  on  this  occasion,  called  forth  the 
general  Indignation  of  his  contemporaries.  .  .  .  For  some  time 
after  Essex's  execution,  Bacon  was  looked  upon  with  great  aver- 
sion.^ 

It  seems  impossible  that  Campbell  could  have  known  that 
the  Queen  altered  this  "Declaration"  to  suit  her  own  views 
and  those  of  her  advisers,  and  that  we  do  not  know  what 
portions  were  Bacon's.  Campbell's  assertion,  too,  that  "the 
multitude  loudly  condemned  him,"  is  quite  contrary  to  the 
facts.  The  Essex  RebelHon  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been 
popular  though  he  himself  was.  This  must  be  acknowledged; 
in  fact,  one  of  the  controUing  motives  of  the  rash  and  unfortu- 
nate young  Earl  in  inciting  the  rebellion  seems  to  have  been 

^  Spedding,  Evenings  with  a  Reviewer,  vol.  i,  p.  I  So.   London,  1881. 
2  John  Campbell,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.A.,  Lives  of  the  Lords  Chancellors  and  Keepers 
of  the  Great  Seal  of  England,  pp.  39-43.   London,  1857. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

to  increase  his  popularity  as  well  as  defeat  his  enemies.  Camp- 
bell's  statement  is  further  disproved  by  the  fact  that  Bacon 
was  given  the  honor  of  a  second  return  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons shortly  after  the  death  of  the  Queen's  former  favorite, 
which  hardly  would  have  been  done  had  he  been  unpopular. 
Of  course  the  partisans  of  Essex  condemned  him  as  they  did 
Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  and  some  of  his  other  friends  who 
could  not  support  him  in  his  rash  undertaking;  indeed,  the 
"Defense  of  Gorges"  to  the  same  charge  of  ingratitude  to 
Essex  which  Campbell  makes  against  Bacon  has  many  points 
in  common.^  The  slavish  meanness  with  which  Campbell 
charges  him  has  been  repeated  many  times.  Says  Fowler,  his 
biographer,  "He  was  generous,  open-hearted,  affectionate, 
peculiarly  sensitive  to  kindness,  and  equally  forgetful  of  in- 
juries";^ and  Spedding,  "All  that  he  is  charged  with  is  for 
appearing  as  counsel  for  the  prosecution.  In  ordinary  proceed- 
ings in  Courts  of  Justice,  appearing  as  counsel  is  not  consid- 
ered as  fatal  to  the  character  of  Attorney-General."  ^ 

Pages  could  be  filled  with  testimony  to  the  same  effect ;  in 
fact,  a  careful  reading  of  Campbell's  "Life"  fails  to  sustain 
the  charge  of  meanness.  Tobie  Matthew,  who  knew  Bacon 
intimately,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  in 
1618  describing  him.  After  extolling  his  great  intellectual 
ability,  he  says :  — 

He  possesses  also  those  qualities  which  are  rather  of  the  heart, 
the  will  and  the  moral  virtue;  being  a  man  most  sweet  in  his  con- 
versation and  ways,  grave  in  his  judgments,  invariable  in  his 
fortunes,  splendid  In  his  expenses,  a  friend  unalterable  to  his 
friends,  an  enemy  to  no  man,  a  most  hearty  and  Indefatigable 
servant  to  the  king,  and  a  most  earnest  lover  of  the  public,  hav- 
ing all  the  thoughts  of  that  large  heart  of  his  set  upon  adorning 
the  age  In  which  he  lives,  and  benefitting  as  far  as  possible  the 
whole  human  race.    And  I  can  truly  say,  having  had  the  honor  to 

^  James  Phinney  Baxter,  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  and  His  Province  oj  Maine. 
Boston,  1890. 

2  Thomas  Fowler,  M.A.,  F.S.A.,  Bacon,  p.  28.   New  York. 
^  Spedding,  Evenings  with  a  Reviewer,  vol.  11,  pp.  64,  65. 

320 


FRANCIS  BACON 

know  him  for  many  years,  as  well  when  he  was  in  his  lesser  for- 
tunes as  now  that  he  stands  at  the  top  and  in  the  full  flower  of 
his  greatness,  that  I  never  yet  saw  any  trace  in  him  of  a  vindic- 
tive spirit  whatever  injury  were  done  him,  nor  never  heard  him 
utter  a  word  to  any  man's  disadvantage  which  seemed  to  proceed 
from  personal  feeling  against  the  man,  but  only  (and  that  too 
very  seldom)  from  judgment  made  of  him  in  cold  blood  —  if  he 
were  of  an  inferior  condition  I  could  not  honor  him  the  less,  and 
if  he  were  mine  enemy  I  should  not  the  less  love  and  endeavour 
to  serve  him.^ 

After  the  accession  of  James  he  wrote  Cecil :  — 

My  ambitions  now  I  shall  only  put  upon  my  pen,  whereby  I 
shall  be  able  to  maintain  memory  and  merit  of  the  time  succeed- 
ing. ^ 

Says  Gardiner,  concerning  State  papers  drawn  up  by  him 
in  1613  for  the  King:  — 

To  carry  out  this  programme  would  have  been  to  avert  the  evils 
of  the  next  half  century.  ...  It  was  Bacon's  fate  through  life  to 
give  good  advice  only  to  be  rejected. 

The  failure  of  Parliament  to  adopt  Bacon's  recommenda- 
tions prompts  Gardiner  to  declare  that, 

Had  the  management  of  Parliament  rested  with  Bacon,  it 
might  not  have  been  necessary  to  dissolve  it  shortly  afterwards. 
...  If  James  had  been  other  than  he  was,  the  name  of  Bacon 
might  have  come  down  to  us  as  great  in  politics,  as  it  is  in  sci- 
ence. The  defects  in  his  character  would  hardly  have  been 
known;  they  would  have  been  lost  in  the  greatness  of  his 
achievements.^ 

Its  sittings  were  suspended  for  seven  years,  and  when  it 
met  it  was  to  hurl  Bacon  from  office.  While  Elizabeth  had  be- 
stowed upon  him  some  emoluments,  she  did  not,  as  already 
said,  advance  him  to  the  position  which  his  character  and 

1  A  Collection  of  Letters  made  by  Sr.  Tohie  Matthew,  Kt.,  1660.  Cf.  Life  of  Sir 
Tohie  Matthew.   London,  1907. 

2  Spedding,  Life  and  Letters. 

3  Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner,  History  of  England,  etc.,  1603-1616,  vol.  I, 
p.  181.   London,  1863. 

321 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

talents  merited.  Essex  urged  her  to  make  him  her  solicitor, 
but  she  refused.  This  refusal  may  have  been  due,  however, 
to  Essex  himself,  whose  manner  of  asking  royal  favors  was 
sometimes  offensive. 

In  1606,  Bacon  was  married  to  Alice  Burnham.  The  next 
year  his  commanding  talents  were  so  fully  appreciated  by  the 
King  that  he  was  made  Solicitor-General  of  the  Crown,  and, 
subsequently,  Attorney-General  and  Privy  Councillor,  be- 
sides being  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall.  In  161 7  he 
achieved  his  highest  dignity,  the  position  of  Lord  Chancellor 
and  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  and  at  the  same  time  was  made 
Baron  Verulam  of  Verulam  with  the  title  of  Lord  Verulam. 
For  this  position  it  has  been  understood  that  he  was  indebted 
to  Buckingham,  that  corrupt  idol  of  a  fickle  king,  upon  whom 
no  man  could  rely  when  self-interest  had  his  ear.  This  indebt- 
edness to  Buckingham,  however,  may  have  been  merely  a  po- 
litical fiction  fostered  by  the  King  to  augment  the  prestige  of 
his  favorite,  although  it  is  not  impossible  that  Buckingham 
thought  that  he  might  be  helpful  to  his  interest.  In  a  short 
time,  it  is  said,  the  Chancellor  was  in  disfavor  for  reproving 
Secretary  Winwood,  an  intimate  of  Buckingham,  for  cruelty 
to  his  dog,  but  principally  for  opposing  the  marriage  of  Buck- 
ingham's brother  with  the  daughter  of  Coke.  Though  the 
rent  in  their  flimsy  friendship  was  patched  up.  Bacon,  from 
the  many  changes  he  had  witnessed,  must  have  felt  none  too 
secure  in  his  place. 

For  some  time  there  had  been  a  growing  discontent  against 
monopolies  which  culminated  in  162 1  in  a  popular  clamor  for 
a  reform  of  abuses.  A  Bill  of  Grievances  was  drawn  up  and 
presented  to  Parliament.  Among  those  who  were  enjoying  op- 
pressive monopolies  were  Buckingham,  his  relatives  and  de- 
pendants. The  timid  King  and  his  favorite  were  alarmed,  and 
every  effort  was  made  to  shift  the  responsibility;  not  that  the 
King,  who  was  the  chief  sinner,  was  accused  of  wrong;  this 
would  have  been  treason ;  but  any  harm  to  "  Steenie "  would 

322 


FRANCIS  BACON 

have  grieved  him  sore.  Attempts  were  made  to  place  the 
blame  upon  the  referees,  and  those  accountable  for  the  form 
and  substance  of  the  King's  patents.  Bacon  was  one  of  the 
referees,  who,  seeing  that  he  was  in  danger,  appealed  to  Buck- 
ingham, complaining  that  "Job  himself,  or  whoever  was  the 
justest  judge,  by  such  hunting  for  matters  against  him,  may 
for  a  time  seem  foul,  specially  in  a  time  when  greatness  is  the 
mark,  and  accusation  is  the  game."  The  proceedings  of  Par- 
liament are  interesting.  The  conspirators  realized  that  the 
more  interests  involved,  and  the  stronger  the  influences 
aroused,  the  better  it  would  be  for  them.  Even  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges  was  haled  before  Parliament  and  forced  to  defend  his 
New  England  patent.^  So  the  comedy  went  on,  and  Bucking- 
ham became  only  an  amused  spectator.  Not  so  the  Lord 
Chancellor.  His  office  was  wanted  for  one  of  Buckingham's 
friends.  His  bitter  enemy,  Coke,  had  been  disgraced,  and  was 
plotting  night  and  day  to  secure  his  downfall ;  besides,  he  had 
Lady  Buckingham  and  other  relatives  of  the  King's  favorite 
against  him.  Coke  was  considered  especially  dangerous,  as 
Bacon  knew  how  easily  charges  of  malfeasance  could  be 
brought  against  one  in  his  position.  Offices  were  bought  and 
sold,  and  Bacon's  office,  which  had  a  large  money  value,  was 
needed  by  Buckingham  whose  extravagance  ever  gave  edge  to 
his  avidity  for  gold.  The  result  was  that  charges  of  accepting 
bribes  were  preferred  against  him. 

Any  one  who  to-day  reads  Campbell's  account  of  his  fall 
will  find  it  almost  impossible  to  believe  Bacon  when  he  de- 
clares that 

For  the  briberies  and  gifts  wherewith  I  am  charged,  when  the 
book  of  hearts  shall  be  opened,  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  found  to  have 
the  troubled  fountain  of  a  corrupt  heart  in  a  depraved  habit  of 
taking  rewards  to  pervert  justice;  howsoever  I  may  be  frail,  and 
partake  of  the  abuses  of  the  times. ^ 

*  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  50. 

2  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,  etc.,  vol.  in,  p.  107.  London,  1857. 

323 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

His  confession  is  calculated  to  give  emphasis  to  one's  doubt 
of  the  truth  of  this  declaration.  To  reconcile  it  with  Camp- 
bell's  and  Macaulay's  statements  it  is  necessary  to  consider 
the  custom  of  the  time  as  well  as  Bacon's  character.  The 
office  of  Lord  Chancellor  was  a  lucrative  one,  being  estimated 
by  Bacon's  successor,  Egerton,  as  worth  annually  from  ten  to 
fifteen  thousand  pounds,  while  the  salary  paid  by  the  Crown 
was  but  enough,  theoretically,  to  supply  the  incumbent  with 
his  official  robes.  To  maintain  the  dignity  of  the  office  was  very 
costly ;  hence  the  incumbent  relied  upon  fees  to  pay  for  his  liv- 
ing, his  state  dinners,  and  the  costly  entertainments  which  he 
was  bound  to  provide.  Bacon  had  argued  for  reform  of  this 
ancient  custom,  but  it  still  prevailed  when  he  assumed  office. 
People  having  business  with  offices  maintained  by  the  fee 
system  were  expected  to  bestow  gifts  upon  their  incumbents 
somewhat  in  proportion  to  the  importance  of  their  business. 
It  was  the  custom,  too,  for  the  most  important  offices  of  the 
realm  to  be  bought  and  sold,  and  it  should  be  understood  that 
Lord  Chancellors,  Chief  Justices,  Lord  Treasurers,  Judges, 
Bishops  and  other  Church  functionaries,  received  fees,  really 
gifts  from  those  having  business  with  their  offices. 

Campbell  says  of  Chief  Justice  Popham:  — 

He  left  behind  him  the  greatest  estate  that  ever  had  been 
amassed  by  any  lawyer  —  some  said  he  earned  as  much  as 
10,000  pounds  a  year,  but  as  it  was  not  supposed  to  be  all  hon- 
estly come  by,  there  was  a  prophecy  that  it  would  not  prosper, 
and  that  "What  was  got  over  the  Devil's  back  would  be  spent 
under  his  belly." 

And  of  Coke:  — 

The  salary  of  Attorney-General  was  only  £81,  6s,  6d,  but  his 
official  emoluments  amounted  to  £7000  a  year.  .  .  .  When  the 
utter  barrister  is  advanced  "ad  gradum  servientis  ad  legem,"  he 
gives,  as  the  reporters  of  all  the  courts  never  omit  to  record,  a 
ring.  .  .  .  These  rings  are  presented  to  persons  high  in  station 
(that  for  the  Sovereign  is  received  by  the  hands  of  the  Lord 
Chancellor)  and  to  all  the  dignitaries  of  the  law,  by  a  barrister 

324 


FRANCIS  BACON 

whom  the  Sergeant  selects  for  that  honorable  service,  and  who  is 
called  his  "Pony."  ^ 

Dr.  Heylin  says  of  the  University  of  Orleans :  — 

In  the  bestowing  of  their  degrees  here  they  are  very  liberal 
and  deny  no  man  who  is  able  to  pay  his  fees.  Legem  fonere  is 
with  them  more  powerful  than  legem  dicere;  and  he  that  has  but 
his  gold  ready,  shall  have  a  sooner  dispatch  than  the  best  scholar 
upon  the  ticket.^ 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  the  pernicious  custom  of 
making  gifts  to  officials  in  high  positions,  as  well  as  for  schol- 
arships in  universities,  was  customary. 

With  respect  to  Bacon,  the  vital  question  is,  did  he  receive 
gifts  to  purchase  decisions  in  favor  of  the  giver }  He  himself 
says :  — 

There  be  three  degrees  or  cases,  as  I  conceive,  of  gifts  or  re- 
wards given  to  a  judge.  The  first  is,  of  bargain,  contract,  or 
promise  of  reward,  pendente  lite.  The  second  is,  a  neglect  in  the 
judge  to  inform  himself  whether  the  cause  be  fully  at  an  end  or 
no,  what  time  he  receives  the  gift,  but  takes  it  upon  the  credit  of 
the  party  that  all  is  done,  or  otherwise  omits  to  inquire.  And  the 
third  is,  when  it  is  received,  sine  fraude,  after  the  cause  is  ended. 

For  the  first,  "The  only  one  implying  moral  guilt,"  I  take  my- 
self to  be  as  innocent  as  any  babe  born  on  St.  Innocent's  day,  in 
my  heart.  For  the  second,  I  doubt  in  some  particulars  I  may  be 
faulty;  and  for  the  last,  I  conceive  it  to  be  no  fault. 

Campbell  does  not  show  that  Bacon  received  gifts  to  pur- 
chase his  decisions,  the  substance  of  Bacon's  first  degree,  and 
the  only  one  really  criminal  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
time.  He  contents  himself  with  quoting  Bacon's  condemna- 
tory remarks  of  himself,  and  his  faith  in  the  "House  of  Com- 
mons who  prosecuted ;  the  House  of  Lords  who  tried  him,  and 
the  public  who  ratified  the  sentence." 

It  hardly  can  be  conceived  that  Campbell  was  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  the  last  years  of  James,  of  the 

^  Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  271,  314-15.  London,  1874. 
2  Peter  Heylin,  Voyage  of  France,  p.  292;  quoted  by  Campbell. 

32s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

mad  doings  of  the  corrupt  crew  headed  by  Buckingham  who 
pulled  down  officials,  and  sold  their  offices  to  enable  them  to 
live  in  luxurious  corruption ;  yet  he  adds  as  an  additional  con- 
firmation of  his  faith  in  the  members  of  Parliament,  many  of 
whom  were  putty  in  the  hands  of  the  Cabal, "  But  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  James  and  Buckingham  would  not  cordially 
have  supported  him  if  he  could  have  been  successfully  de- 
fended." 

We  shall  better  understand  Bacon's  state  of  mind  with  re- 
gard to  himself  if  we  read  what  Campbell  himself  gives  us:  he 
says :  — 

He  certainly  received  a  most  pious  education;  and  if  his  early 
religious  impressions  were  for  a  time  weakened  or  effaced  by  his 
intercourse  with  French  philosophers,  or  his  own  first  rash  exam- 
inations of  the  reasons  of  his  belief,  I  am  fully  convinced  that 
they  were  restored  and  deepened  by  subsequent  study  and  re- 
flection. I  rely  not  merely  on  his  "Confession  of  Faith,"  or  the 
other  direct  declarations  of  his  belief  in  the  great  truths  of  our 
religion  (although  I  know  not  what  right  we  have  to  question 
his  sincerity),  but  I  am  swayed  more  by  the  devotional  feelings 
which  from  time  to  time,  without  premeditation  or  design,  break 
out  in  his  writings,  and  the  incidental  indications  he  gives  of  his 
full  conviction  of  the  being  and  providence  of  God,  and  of  the 
Divine  mission  of  our  blessed  Saviour.  His  lapses  from  the  path 
of  honour  afford  no  argument  against  the  genuineness  of  his  spec- 
ulative belief.  Upon  the  whole  we  may  be  well  assured  that  the 
difficulties  which  at  one  time  perplexed  him  had  been  completely 
dissipated;  his  keen  perception  saw  as  clearly  as  it  is  ever  given 
to  man  in  this  state  to  discover  —  the  hand  of  the  Creator,  Pre- 
server and  Governor  of  the  universe;  —  and  his  gigantic  intellect 
must  have  been  satisfied  with  the  consideration,  that  assuming 
the  truth  of  natural  and  of  revealed  religion,  it  is  utterly  incon- 
sistent with  the  system  of  human  affairs,  and  with  the  condition 
of  man  in  this  world,  that  they  should  have  been  more  clearly 
disclosed  to  us. 

Campbell's  opinion  that  Bacon  was  unduly  influenced  for  a 
time  by  French  philosophers,  meaning  infidel  speculators,  is 
hardly  borne  out  by  records.  He  had  a  wide  correspondence 

326 


FRANCIS  BACON 

with  men  of  many  faiths ;  was  a  friend  of  the  free-thinking 
Bruno  who  visited  him  in  England ;  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Matthew,  and  of  the  French  philosopher  Montaigne,  which 
somewhat  disturbed  Lady  Bacon  who  was  a  Puritan.  The  fact 
is,  that  he  was  a  lover  of  men,  and  tolerant  of  all  their  faiths, 
realizing  the  fact  that  no  human  mind  embraces  all  the  truth 
of  man's  relation  to  God ;  but  we  fail  to  find  anything  which 
shows  that  he  was  unfaithful  at  any  period  of  life  to  the  car- 
dinal principles  of  Christianity.  He,  of  course,  studied  French 
philosophers,  for  we  find  that  he  lays  it  down  as  highly  wise  to 
study  the  bad  as  well  as  the  good,  that  the  bad  may  be  under- 
stood and  shunned,  but  his  mind  was  too  stable  to  be  easily 
moved  by  mere  opinions.  This  is  what  he  says  himself:  — 

A  little  philosophy  maketh  men  apt  to  forget  God,  as  attribut- 
ing too  much  to  secondary  causes;  but  depth  of  philosophy  bring- 
eth  a  man  back  to  God  again. 

Campbell,  however,  amply  allows  for  his  seeming  slips  by 
this:  — 

Among  his  good  qualities  it  ought  to  be  mentioned,  that  he  had 
no  mean  jealousy  of  others,  and  he  was  always  disposed  to  patron- 
ize merit.  Feeling  how  long  he  himself  had  been  unjustly  depressed 
from  unworthy  motives,  he  never  would  inflict  similar  injustice 
on  others,  and  he  repeatedly  cautions  statesmen  to  guard  against 
this  propensity,  —  "He  that  plots  to  be  a  figure  among  ciphers 
is  the  decay  of  a  whole  age."  ^ 

And  he  might  have  quoted  this  saying  of  his :  — 

Power  to  do  good  is  the  true  and  lawful  end  of  aspiring;  for 
good  thoughts  though  God  accepts  them,  yet  toward  men  are 
little  better  than  dreams  except  they  be  put  in  act,  and  that  can- 
not be  without  power  and  place  as  the  vantage  and  commanding 
ground. 

Bacon's  sudden  fall  from  a  brilliant  position,  where  he  had 
received  the  adulation  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  time,  which 
must  in  the  nature  of  things  have  appealed  to  all  the  passions 

^  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors^  vol.  in,  p.  143. 

327 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  frail  humanity,  made  him  suddenly  see  mirrored  in  his 
heart  the  faults  he  had  committed.  He  had  been  reared  in 
the  strict  Puritan  faith  which  utterly  condemned  worldliness 
and  pride  of  heart,  and  insisted  that  its  followers  who  yielded 
to  these  sins  should  humble  themselves  and  confess  them. 
His  state  of  mind  is  revealed  in  his  reply  to  the  question  why 
he  did  not  attend  the  coronation  festivities  after  the  King 
had  restored  him  to  the  peerage,  —  "I  have  done  with  such 
vanities."  Sick  and  weary  of  bending  the  supple  hinges  of  the 
knee  to  a  ridiculous  king  and  an  infamous  favorite,  as  men 
were  obliged  to  do  who  ventured  into  the  field  of  politics,  he 
condemned  himself  for  his  folly,  saying,  "The  talents  which 
God  has  given  me  I  have  misspent."  True  he  begged  to  have 
his  disabilities  removed  which  made  men  point  to  him  as  a 
disgraced  man,  and,  as  Campbell  says,  he  no  doubt  would 
have  been  glad  to  return  to  Parliament,  where  there  were  so 
many  reforms  awaiting  a  champion.  In  view  of  the  opinions 
of  Macaulay  and  Campbell  this  may  seem  to  objectors  a  sen- 
timental attempt  to  whiten  a  smirched  penitent,  but  all  the 
opinions  of  these  eminent  historians  are  not  of  equal  validity, 
as  criticism  has  revealed,  and  such  objectors  are  advised  to 
seek  farther. 

He  has  placed  his  faults  under  the  second  head  of  his  table 
of  wrongdoings  by  judges;  namely,  "Neglect  to  ascertain  if 
the  cause  be  at  an  end  where  gifts  are  made."  Bacon  was 
notoriously  careless  of  his  pecuniary  affairs,  as  so  many  men 
of  genius  have  been.  An  officer  of  the  court  received  these 
fees,  and  out  of  the  seven  thousand  causes  upon  which  Bacon 
had  rendered  decisions,  there  was  but  one  in  which  it  was 
claimed  that  he  received  the  fee  himself,  and  this  was  in  the 
presence  of  Churchill,  whom  he  had  discharged  for  malfeas- 
ance, and  Gardner,  both  tools  of  the  arch-conspirators.  The 
value  of  this  testimony  the  reader  must  estimate.  It  must 
have  been  clear  to  Coke  that  if  this  were  done  by  Bacon  in  the 
presence  of  these  men,  he  could  not  have  thought  it  wrong, 

328 


FRANCIS  BACON 

for  it  would  have  been  a  greater  act  of  folly  for  him  to  have 
put  himself  in  their  power  than  even  Coke  would  have  deemed 
him  guilty  of.  The  attempt  to  prove  that  the  Lord  Chancellor 
had  been  influenced  in  his  decisions  of  gifts  miserably  failed 
when  two  of  the  star  witnesses  had  to  acknowledge  that  their 
cases  had  been  decided  against  them.  It  may  be  safely  af- 
firmed that  but  for  Bacon's  "confession/'  nobody,  from  a 
study  of  the  case  and  a  knowledge  of  the  motives  behind  it, 
would  for  a  moment  sustain  Campbell's  opinion.  Neglect  is  the 
substance  of  his  confession ;  otherwise  how  could  he  say:  — 

I  have  not  hid  my  sin  as  did  Adam,  nor  concealed  my  faults  in 
my  bosom.   This  is  the  only  justification  which  I  will  use. 

And  writing  to  Buckingham  he  tells  him  that  he  had  been 

The  jus  test  Chancellor  that  hath  been  in  the  five  changes  since 
Sir  Nicholas  Bacon's  time. 

And  again,  — 

I  praise  God  for  it.  I  never  took  penny  for  my  beneficent  or 
ecclesiastical  living;  I  never  took  penny  for  any  commission  or 
things  of  that  nature;  I  never  shared  with  any  reward  for  any 
second  or  inferior  profit. 

This  was  explicit  enough. 

Bacon  was  Lord  Chancellor  a  little  over  three  years.  His 
enemies  found  the  few  irregularities  against  him  in  the  first 
part  of  his  tenure  of  office,  when  he  was  new  to  its  methods, 
and  overwhelmed  with  work.  Not  a  case  was  found  during  his 
last  two  years  of  service.  To  his  diligence  in  office  this  letter 
to  Buckingham  of  June  8,  1617,  a  year  after  he  assumed  office, 
testifies:  — 

My  Very  Good  Lord,  —  This  day  I  have  made  even  with  the 
business  of  the  kingdom  for  common  justice.  Not  one  cause  un- 
heard. The  lawyers  drawn  dry  of  all  the  motions  they  were  to 
make.  Not  one  petition  unanswered.  And  this,  I  think,  could 
not  be  said  in  our  age  before.  This  I  speak  not  out  of  ostentation, 
but  out  of  gladness  when  I  have  done  my  duty.  I  know  men  think 

329 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

I  cannot  continue  if  I  should  thus  oppress  myself  of  business. 
But  that  account  is  made.  The  duties  of  life  are  more  than  life. 
And  if  I  die  now  I  shall  die  before  the  world  be  weary  of  me, 
which  in  our  times  is  somewhat  rare. 

It  would  seem  that  to  make  no  active  defense  was  thought 
by  him  to  be  wise;  indeed,  it  would  have  been  useless,  and 
possibly  dangerous.  His  office  was  wanted  by  men  too  power- 
ful to  struggle  against,  and  the  best  policy  was  to  submit. 
This  he  did,  and,  accepting  his  loss  of  position,  resumed  his 
literary  industries,  and  devoted  himself  to  them  with  unre- 
mitting diligence. 

Bacon  has  so  many  eulogists  that,  in  estimating  his  intellect- 
ual attainment,  it  may  be  wise  to  listen  first  to  the  opinions  of 
Campbell,  rather  than  to  those  of  one  having  greater  admira- 
tion for  his  genius.  Historical  writers  always  appeal  to  Camp- 
bell's estimate  of  his  character,  but  rarely  to  his  opinion  of  his 
genius.  While  the  learned  jurist  failed  to  set  proper  limits 
to  Bacon's  frank  acknowledgment  of  profiting  by  a  custom 
sanctioned  by  those  in  power,  which  he  did  not  approve,  he 
was  generous  in  awarding  him  the  highest  praise  for  intellect- 
ual ability.  He  says :  — 

I  find  no  impeachment  of  his  morals  deserving  of  attention, 
and  he  certainly  must  have  been  a  man  of  very  great  temperance, 
for  the  business  and  studies  through  which  he  went  would  be 
enough  to  fill  up  the  lives  of  ten  men,  who  spend  their  evenings 
over  their  wine,  and  awake  crapulous  in  the  morning  —  knowing 
that  if  he  took  good  care  of  sections  of  an  hour,  entire  days  would 
take  care  of  themselves. 

All  accounts  represent  him  as  a  most  delightful  companion, 
adapting  himself  to  company  of  every  degree,  calling,  and  hu- 
mour, not  engrossing  the  conversation,  but  trying  to  get  all  to 
talk  in  turn  on  the  subject  they  best  understood,  and  "not  dis- 
daining to  light  his  candle  at  the  lamp  of  any  other." 

He  also  quotes  from  Macaulay,  who,  censuring  him  for 
wasting  his  talents  on  "paltry  intrigues,"  renders  him  the 
unique  tribute  of  possessing  "  the  most  exquisitely  constructed 

330 


FRANCIS  BACON 

intellect  that  has  ever  been  bestowed  on  any  of  the  children  of 

men." 

Garnett  calls  him  "the  greatest  intellect  of  his  age";  and 

observes  that 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  duality  of  his  nature,  that  his  intel- 
lectual conscience  did  not  mislead  him,  and  even  gave  him 
strength  to  rejoice  at  the  purification  of  justice,  though  to  his 
own  shame  and  detriment.^ 

Macaulay  says :  — 

In  his  magnificent  grounds  he  erected,  at  a  cost  of  ten  thou- 
sand pounds,  a  retreat  to  which  he  repaired  when  he  wished  to 
avoid  all  visitors,  and  to  devote  himself  wholly  to  study.  On  such 
occasions,  a  few  young  men  of  distinguished  talents  were  some- 
times the  companions  of  his  retirement,  and  among  them  his 
quick  eye  soon  discerned  the  superior  abilities  of  Thomas  Hobbes. 
It  is  not  probable,  however,  that  he  fully  appreciated  the  powers 
of  his  disciple,  or  foresaw  the  vast  influence,  both  for  good  and 
for  evil,  which  that  most  vigorous  and  acute  of  human  intellects 
was  destined  to  exercise  on  the  two  succeeding  generations.  ^ 

Who  were  these  young  men  but  those  being  fitted  for  the 
fraternity,  which  with  unselfish  devotion  was  to  spread  learn- 
ing abroad  ? 

Every  scrap  of  the  large  bulk  of  manuscript  material  which 
the  Bacons  have  left  ought  to  be  printed.  Various  hints  can 
be  gathered  from  them  which  will  throw  light  on  their  ac- 
tivities. Note  these: — 

Layeing  for  a  place  to  command  wytts  and  pennes,  Westmin- 
ster, Eton,  Wynchester,  spec(ially)  Trinity  Coll.,  Cam.,  St. 
John's,  Cam. :  Maudlin  Coll.,  Oxford. 

Qu.  Of  young  schollars  in  ye  universities.  It  must  be  the  post 
nati.  Giving  pensions  to  four,  to  compile  the  two  histories,  ut 
supra.   Foundac:  Of  a  college  for  inventors.   Library,  Inginary. 

Qu.  Of  the  order  and  discipline,  the  rules  and  prsescripts  of 
their  studyes  and  inquyries,  allowances  for  travelling,  intelli- 
gence, and  correspondence  with  ye  universities  abroad. 

Qu.  Of  the  maner  and  praescripts  touching  secresy,  traditions 
and  publication, 

*  English  Literature  J  p.  i6.  ^  Essays,  p.  303  et  seq. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Here  we  get  a  glimpse  of  his  work. 
Says  Spedding:  — 

In  him  the  gift  of  seeing  in  prophetic  vision  what  might  be 
and  ought  to  be,  was  united  with  the  practical  talent  of  devising 
means  and  handling  minute  details.  He  could  at  once  imagine, 
like  a  poet,  and  execute  like  a  clerk  of  the  works.  Upon  the 
conviction,  "This  may  be  done,"  followed  at  once  the  question 
*'How  may  it  be  done.^"  Upon  that  question  answered,  followed 
the  resolution  to  try  and  do  it.^ 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  we  invite  the  reader  to  note  carefully 
the  following  passage  from  "The  New  Atlantis":  — 

The  end  of  our  Foundation  is  the  Knowledge  of  Causes  and 
secret  motions  of  things,  and  the  enlarging  of  the  bounds  of  hu- 
man empire,  to  the  effecting  of  all  things  possible.  .  .  . 

That  Bacon  was  a  pioneer  in  the  assertion  of  popular  rights 
is  shown  by  his  record.  It  is  said  that  after  his  insistence  upon 
the  rights  of  the  Commons,  the  Queen  sent  an  angry  message 
to  him  to  the  effect  that  he  might  never  expect  from  her  fur- 
ther favor  or  promotion.  Macaulay  comments  upon  this  as 
follows :  — 

The  young  patriot  condescended  to  make  the  most  abject 
apologies:  —  the  lesson  was  not  thrown  away.  Bacon  never 
offended  in  the  same  manner  again. 

"And  yet,"  says  Spedding,  "this  letter  is  a  justification  and 
no  apology, "  ^  and  Abbott,  "  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  among 
the  many  expressions  of  regret  at  the  royal  displeasure,  there 
is  no  record  of  any  apology  tendered  by  Bacon  for  his  speech."  ^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Macaulay  has  misinterpreted 
Bacon's  letter.  That  no  man  could  be  advanced  to  office  in  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth  without  being  subservient  to  the  Crown 
cannot  be  denied.  Campbell  says  of  Coke  that  though  he  "was 
known  to  be  an  incarnation  of  the  common  law  of  England," 

*  The  Works,  etc. 

2  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  233. 

'  Introduction  to  Bacon's  Essays^  vol.  i,  p.  xxix. 

332 


FRANCIS  BACON 

he  could  not  have  attained  a  high  office  "without  .  .  .  hav- 
ing given  any  sure  earnest  of  sound  political  principles";  and 
he  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  when  new  Speakers  of  the 
House  of  Commons  made  the  usual  request  for  liberty  of 
speech  and  ancient  privileges,  she  sharply  admonished  them 
"  to  see  that  they  did  not  deal  or  intermeddle  with  any  matters  ^^ 
touching  her  person  or  estate,  or  church  or  government."  ^  ^ 
This  was  demanding  the  exercise  of  "sound  political  princi- 
ples" with  a  vengeance,  for  it  might  be  stretched  to  apply  to 
almost  any  subject. 

Macaulay  declared  before  his  death  that  he  regretted  hav- 
ing so  severely  censured  Bacon.  It  would  appear  that  he  be- 
gan to  realize  the  theoretical  nature  of  his  writing  which  had 
been  sharply  criticized.  Though  a  fascinating  writer,  he  was 
apt  to  permit  his  fancy  for  rhetoric  to  beguile  him,  hence  he  is 
not  always  a  safe  guide.  His  pride  of  opinion  and  intolerance 
of  views  differing  from  his  own  are  exemplified  in  his  over- 
sharp  criticism  of  Montagu's  work. 

Had  Macaulay  read  Fuller,  who,  after  speaking  of  Bacon's 
education  and  talents,  pays  him  the  compliment  of  reducing 
"  Notional  to  Real  and  Scientifical  Philosophy  "  ?   Says  Fuller : 

He  was  afterwards  bred  in  Gray^s  Inn,  in  the  Study  of  our 
Municipal  Law,  attaining  to  great  Eminency,  but  no  Preferment 
thereon,  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth;  Imputable  to  the 
envy  of  a  great  Person,  who  hindered  his  rising,  for  fear  to  be 
hindered  by  him  if  risen  and  Eclipsed  in  his  own  profession.  Thus 
the  strongest  zuing  of  merit  cannot  mount,  if  a  stronger  weight  of 
malice  doth  depress  it.  Yet  was  he  even  then  Favorite  to  a  Favorite, 
I  mean,  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  more  true  to  him  than  the  Earl 
was  to  himself.  For  finding  him  to  prefer  destructive  before  dis- 
pleasing Counsel,  Sir  Francis  fairly  forsook,  not  his  person,  (whom 
his  pity  attended  to  the  grave)  but  practices,  and  herein  was  not 
the  worse  friend,  for  being  the  better  subject.  —  Such  as  con- 
demn him  for  pride,  if  in  his  place,  with  the  fift  part  of  his  parts, 
had  been  ten  times  prouder  themselves;  he  had  been  a  better 

^  John  Campbell,  The  Lives  of  the  Lord  Justices,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  218,  224.  New 
York,  1874. 

333 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Master  if  he  had  been  a  worse,  being  too  bountiful  to  his  servants, 
and  either  too  confident  of  their  honesty,  or  too  conniving  ^  at  their 
falsehood. 

The  story  is  told  to  his  disadvantage,  that  he  had  two  Servants, 
one  in  all  causes  Patron  to  the  Plaintiffe,  (whom  his  charity  pre- 
sumed always  injured)  the  other  to  the  Defendant,  pitying  him  as 
compelled  to  Law)  but  taking  bribes  of  both,  with  this  condition, 
to  restore  the  money  received  if  the  Cause  went  against  them.  Their 
Lord  ignorant  hereof,  always  did  impartial  Justice,  whilst  his 
men  (making  people  pay  for  what  was  given  them)  by  compact 
shared  the  money  betwixt  them,  which  cost  their  master  the  loss 
of  his  office.  2 

The  "great  Person"  who.  Fuller  says,  hindered  his  rising 
was,  of  course,  Cecil,  who  Greene  tells  us  was  the  "mortal 
enemy  of  Essex,"  as  he  always  was  of  Bacon.  As  an  instance 
of  unfair  criticism.  Bacon  is  accused  in  Sir  James  Mackintosh's 
"History  of  England"  of  having  written  the  "History  of 
Henry  Vn,"  to  flatter  James  L  This  notion  had  found  currency 
among  his  enemies,  and  perhaps  incited  the  truculent  Pope  to 
throw  this  at  him,  "The  wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  man- 
kind." To  this  Macaulay  delightedly  called  attention.  Sped- 
dinghas  completely  disposed  of  the  charge,  but  we  must  content 
ourselves  by  calling  attention  to  the  principal  points  in  Bacon's 
behalf:  namely,  he  had  contemplated  this  history  for  fifteen 
years,  and  had  furnished  for  Speed's  "History  of  England"  a 
sketch  of  it  twelve  years  before  the  later  publication ;  besides, 
the  character  created  by  Bacon  is  also  wholly  unlike  that  of 
James  except  in  two  particulars,  love  of  peace  and  conjugal 
constancy.  Henry's  shortcomings  were  conspicuously  due  to 
deficiencies  in  himself,  and  not  to  want  of  opportunity  or  un- 
towardness  of  fortune,  which  was  far  from  flattering  to  James. 
We  are  compelled  to  give  this  wholly  inadequate  reference  to 
Spedding's  defense  for  lack  of  space,  and  refer  the  reader  to 

^  In  the  sense  of  "to  pass  unnoticed,  uncensured,  or  unpunished."  Imp. 
Diet,  in  loco. 

2  Thomas  Fuller,  D.D.,  The  History  of  the  Worthies  of  England,  pp.  242, 
243.  London,  1662. 

334 


FRANCIS  BACON 

the  original.^  "But,"  says  Campbell,  "it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  James  and  Buckingham  would  not  cordially  have  sup- 
ported him  if  he  could  have  been  successfully  defended."  ^ 

"Jaco"  and  "Steenie"!  —  those  two  unworthy  mortals 
whose  lives  were  spent  in  placing  obstacles  across  the  path  of 
English  liberty,  but  which,  providentially,  gave  it  the  oppor- 
tunity of  accumulating  force;  how  could  Campbell  have  made 
such  a  slip  as  this  ?  A  study  of  the  case  discloses  the  reason. 
He  gave  undue  weight  to  a  note  of  dissent  appended  by  Buck- 
ingham to  the  judgment  of  the  court.  Bacon  had  said  to  the 
King,  whose  cowardice  was  proverbial,  "Those  who  strike  at  % 
your  Chancellor  will  strike  at  your  Crown."  He  also  made 
a  bold  demand  of  Buckingham  for  release  from  the  Tower, 
which  was  granted  promptly,  for  Buckingham  was  not  free  V^ 
from  political  cowardice,  and  must  have  felt  the  insecurity  of 
his  position  which  later  resulted  in  his  assassination.  Histori- 
cal portraits  of  him  are  so  common  that  they  seem  almost  as 
much  out  of  place  here  as  would  Velasquez's  ubiquitous  por- 
trait of  Philip  IV  of  Spain ;  yet  it  may  be  proper  to  give  this 
from  Green :  — 

No  veil  hid  the  degrading  grossness  of  the  Court  of  James  and 
of  Buckingham.  .  .  .  The  payment  of  bribes  to  him,  or  marriage 
to  his  greedy  relatives,  became  the  one  road  to  political  prefer- 
ment. Resistance  to  his  will  was  inevitably  followed  by  dismissal 
from  office.  Even  the  highest  and  most  powerful  of  the  nobles 
were  made  to  tremble  at  the  note  of  this  young  upstart.^ 

His  note  of  dissent  was  insincere.  The  Chancellor  was  done 
with,  and  to  assume  the  role  of  a  magnanimous  and  kindly 
patron  appeared  well  to  his  friends.  Had  Campbell  studied 
his  case  more  carefully  he  would  have  refrained  from  making 
this  careless  remark. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  bits  of  testimony  to 

^  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  13-40. 

2  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,  vol.  11,  p.  116. 

3  Green,  Short  History,  p.  487. 

335 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Bacon's  beauty  of  character  is  furnished  by  the  voluntary 
confession  of  Thomas  Bushell.  The  following  is  an  ex- 
tract :  — 

A  Letter  to  his  approved  beloved  Mr,  John  Eliot,  Esq. 

The  ample  testimony  of  your  true  affection  towards  my 
Lord  Verulam,  Viscount  St.  Albans,  hath  obliged  me  your  serv- 
ant. Yet,  lest  the  calumnious  tongues  of  men  might  extenuate 
the  good  opinion  you  had  of  his  worth  and  merit,  I  must  ingenu- 
ously confess  that  myself  and  others  of  his  servants  were  the 
occasions  of  exhaling  his  vertues  into  a  dark  eclipse;  which  God 
knowes  would  have  long  endured  both  for  the  honour  of  his  King 
and  the  good  of  the  Commonaltie;  had  not  we  whom  his  bountie 
nursed,  laid  on  his  guiltlesse  shoulders  our  base  and  execrable 
deeds  to  be  scand  and  censured  by  the  whole  Senate  of  a  State, 
where  no  sooner  sentence  was  given,  but  most  of  us  forsoke  him, 
which  makes  us  bear  the  badge  of  Jewes  to  this  day.^ 

Bushell's  repentance  was  so  sincere  that  he  retired  to  a 
desolate  island,  the  Calf  of  Man,  where  for  three  years  he  led 
the  life  of  a  hermit,  sheltered  by  a  hut  built  with  his  own  hands 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  SEAL  OF  THOMAS  BUSHELL 

and  subsisting  upon  herbs,  oil,  mustard,  and  honey,  "with 
water  sufficient."  His  lifelong  attachment  to  Bacon,  who 
took  him  into  his  service  as  a  youth,  "principally"  educated 
him  and  paid  his  debts  when  in  financial  trouble,  is  further  re- 

^  Rev.  A.  de  la  Peyme,  Memoirs  of  Thomas  Bushell.    1878. 

336 


FRANCIS  BACON 

vealed  by  a  large  and  finely  executed  gold  medal,  bearing  the 
head  of  his  benefactor  crowned  with  the  familiar  hat,  with 
BushelFs  name  on  the  obverse.^  The  knowledge  acquired  by 
assisting  Bacon  in  his  scientific  experiments  led  to  his  con- 
nection with  the  royal  mines  in  Wales,  and  fortune.  Bushell's 
service  to  the  state  finally  won  for  him  burial  in  the  cloisters 
of  Westminster  Abbey.  ^ 
Said  Matthew  of  Bacon :  — 

A  friend  unalterable  to  his  friends  —  it  is  not  his  greatness  that 
I  admire,  but  his  virtue.^ 

And  Rawley,  his  chaplain:  — 

I  have  been  induced  to  think  that  if  ever  there  were  a  beam  of 
knowledge  derived  from  God  upon  any  man  in  these  modern 
times,  it  was  upon  Francis  Bacon."* 

Aubrey  and  others  are  equally  emphatic  in  their  expressions 
of  his  character. 

His  abiHty  for  accomplishing  work  was  astounding.  During 
the  first  four  terms  of  his  oflSce  the  number  of  orders  and  de- 
crees made  by  him  were  eight  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
ninety-eight,  and  the  number  of  suitors  whose  cases  were 
settled,  thirty-five  thousand.  Nothing  like  this  had  been  ac- 
complished before. 

That  Bacon  was  a  sincere  Christian  cannot  reasonably  be 
doubted.  The  great  Puritan  movement  drew  to  itself,  as  all 
great  reforms  do,  many  fanatical  and  half-crazed  men  who 
had  suffered  by  oppression,  and  were  intolerant  of  all  who 
could  not  go  to  the  extremes  to  which  they  went.  Bacon,  who 
was  reared  in  this  form  of  faith,  could  not  adopt  many  of  its 
narrow  views,  and  was  as  sincerely  friendly  with  the  Catholic 
Matthew  as  with  the  Episcopal  Rawley,  or  the  Puritan  Cecil. 

^  Horace  Walpole,  Anecdotes  of  Paintings  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  254.   London,  1862. 
The  author  inappropriately  denominates  him  a  medalist. 
2  Cf.  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  in  loco. 
'  Spedding,  Italian  Letter,  Worksy  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  52. 
*  Rawley's  Life,  p.  47. 

337 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

None  but  a  clear-sighted  and  sincere  Christian,  however,  could 
have  made  this  prayer:  — 

Remember,  O  Lord!  how  thy  servant  has  walked  before  Thee; 
remember  what  I  have  first  thought,  and  what  hath  been  prin- 
cipal in  my  intentions.  I  have  loved  thy  assemblys.  I  have 
mourned  for  the  diversions  of  Thy  Church.  I  have  delighted  in 
the  brightness  of  Thy  Sanctuary.  This  Vine  which  Thy  right 
hand  hath  planted  in  this  nation,  I  have  ever  prayed  with  Thee 
that  it  might  have  the  first  and  the  latter  rain;  and  that  it  might 
stretch  its  branches  to  the  seas  and  to  the  floods.  The  state  and 
bread  of  the  poor  have  been  precious  in  mine  eyes;  I  have  hated 
all  cruelty  and  hardness  of  heart.  I  have,  though  in  a  despised 
weed,  procured  the  good  of  all  men. 

With  respect  to  the  charge  that  he  had  forsaken  Essex,  one 
made  against  other  friends  of  the  Earl  who  would  not  go  his 
length  in  committing  acts  savoring  of  treason,  he  said :  — 

Any  honest  man  that  hath  his  heart  well  planted  will  forsake 
his  King  rather  than  forsake  his  God,  and  forsake  his  Friend 
rather  than  forsake  his  King;  and  yet  will  forsake  any  earthly 
commodity,  yea,  his  own  life  in  some  cases,  rather  than  forsake 
his  Friend. 

In  this  frame  of  mind  he  went  back  to  his  books  with  a  joy 
which  finds  its  echo  in  "Henry  VIII":  — 

Grif.  His  Overthrow,  heap'd  Happinesse  upon  him 
For  then,  and  not  till  then,  he  felt  himselfe, 
And  found  the  Blessednesse  of  being  little. 
And  to  adde  greater  Honors  to  his  Age 
Than  man  could  give  him;  he  dy'de  fearing  God. 

IV,  2. 

That  he  was  free  from  the  vice  of  arrogance  in  an  age  when 
it  was  almost  fostered  as  a  virtue,  is  proved  by  ample  testi- 
mony, and  also  that  he  was  generous  to  a  fault.  His  sanguine 
temperament,  says  Boener,  caused  him  to  will  to  charity  so 
much  that  his  estate  failed  to  satisfy  his  creditors,  and  his 
property  was  sold  at  a  sacrifice.  He  was  a  prophet  without 
honor  in  his  own  country,  and  it  was  left  to  future  ages  to 

338 


FRANCIS  BACON 

honor  his  memory.  After  the  triumph  of  his  enemies,  some  of 
whom  he  saw  without  any  sign  of  satisfaction  come  to  their 
well-merited  deserts,  Bacon  labored  with  restless  energy  to 
complete  and  publish  his  literary  works,  realizing  that  his  end 
was  not  distant.  It  was  during  this  period  that  he  printed  his 
"Novum  Organum,"  the  "History  of  Henry  VII,"  "Historia 
Vitae  et  Mortis,"  and  reprinted  and  enlarged  his  "  Essays." 

Bacon's  scientific  attainments  have  been  criticized  by  his 
defamers,  who  especially  quote  against  him  some  of  the  puer- 
ilities and  misconceptions,  especially  in  medicine  and  natural 
history,  peculiar  to  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  by  which  he 
was  somewhat  influenced.  In  reading  some  of  these  criticisms 
the  caustic  saying  of  Ben  Jonson  naturally  comes  to  mind: 
"The  writer  must  lie,  and  the  gentle  reader  rests  happy  to 
have  the  worthiest  works  misinterpreted."  Such  criticisms 
are  unjust,  for  there  was  no  man  living  in  his  day  who  might 
not  be  criticized  in  the  same  manner.  The  vision  of  Dr.  Har- 
vey, whose  fame  as  the  discoverer  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  has  been  blown  ad  astra,  though  he  was  anticipated  by 
Servetus  ^  in  the  same  degree  that  Bacon  was  by  Aristotle  in 
the  inductive  process,  was  limited  in  many  directions  by  the 
boundaries  which  the  schools  of  his  day  had  fixed.  It  is  the 
same  to-day.  The  wisest  student  in  science  refuses  immediate 
acceptance  of  a  novel  discovery  until  he  has  had  ample  time 
for  verification  by  the  most  exacting  tests.  Everybody  now 
knows  that  a  railway  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  was 
a  feasible  project,  but  when  it  was  proposed  some  of  the 
best  thinkers  demurred.  One  of  these  declared  that  it  was 
chimerical;  no  railway  train  could  possibly  pass  the  Rocky 
Mountains  in  winter.  When  the  road  was  opened  he  re- 
ceived a  free  pass  for  the  journey.  No  human  intellect  has 
compassed,  or  ever  will  compass,  all  learning.  While  Bacon 
may  have  been  as  Hallam  declares,  "The  wisest,  greatest  of 

^  Christianismi  Restitutio,  in  which  the  circulation  of  the  blood  is  quite 
clearly  explained. 

339 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

mankind,"  his  knowledge  was  relative  to  that  of  his  generation. 
The  world  was  distracted  with  speculations  upon  many  sub- 
jects. Though  the  baleful  flames  of  Marian  martyrdom  had 
subsided,  theological  controversy  had  not.  Novel  scientific 
theories  were  abundant,  and  philosophy  was  throwing  apples 
of  discord  into  the  arena.  At  any  other  time  Bacon  might 
have  welcomed  Galileo's  disclosures,  but  the  great  discov- 
erer's instruments  were  but  toys  compared  with  those  of  to- 
day, and  he  doubted  their  efficiency.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  Gilbert's  magnetic  researches ;  he  was  interested  in  them, 
but  Gilbert  was  experimenting  with  a  subject  of  such  magni- 
tude that  it  is  still  a  mystery. 

Walsh  utterly  condemns  him  for  not  adopting  his  theories 
at  once:  in  fact,  like  the  German  Duhring,  he  goes  out  of  his 
way  to  obscure  his  fame,  as  though  it  were  to  bring  into 
brighter  light  the  accomplishments  of  Peregrinus,  Roger  Ba- 
con, Albertus  Magnus,  and  other  ancient  students.  Of  course, 
every  modern  scholar  should  know,  and  will  acknowledge  the 
debt  the  world  owes  these  men,  who  labored  in  a  dismal  age 
of  ignorance  which  regarded  even  the  good  Friar  Bacon  as  a 
wizard,  and  threw  him  into  prison  for  dealing  with  "  certain 
suspicious  novelties,"  compelling  him  to  hide  in  an  anagram 
his  formula  for  gunpowder,  derived,  by  the  way,  from  an 
Arabian  source.  Dr.  Walsh  condemns  Francis  Bacon  as  a 
charlatan  for  making  use  of  the  knowledge  of  his  predecessors. 
We  are  sure,  however,  that  he  will  not  claim  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  Roger  Bacon  and  other  ancient  scholars  had  its  origin 
in  their  own  minds:  indeed,  we  would  be  glad  to  know  the 
origin  of  a  single  modern  invention,  or  so-called  discovery. 

When  Francis  Bacon  began  to  study  the  phenomena  and 
laws  of  nature  and  of  mind.  Englishmen  neither  knew  nor 
cared  to  know  aught  beyond  the  limits  circumscribing  the 
system  of  Aristotle.  Francis  Bacon  did  what  Roger  Bacon  and 
others  of  an  earlier  age  did,  availed  himself  of  the  common 
stock  of  knowledge  gathered  by  teachers  of  the  past,  and  en- 

340 


FRANCIS  BACON 

larged  and  adapted  what  he  found  best  suited  to  his  purposes 
to  the  conditions  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  If  Dr.  Walsh 
had  confined  himself  to  a  relation  of  what  the  ancient  scholars 
accomplished  for  science,  we  should  be  more  greatly  indebted 
to  him.  As  it  is,  his  readable  and  somewhat  useful  book  savors 
of  religious  prejudice  which  should  find  no  place  in  modern 
discussion.  This  remark  of  the  doctor's  shows  clearly  his 
animus :  — 

Personally  I  have  always  felt  that  he  [Francis  Bacon]  has 
almost  less  right  to  all  the  praise  that  has  been  bestowed  on  him 
for  what  he  is  supposed  to  have  done  for  science,  than  he  has  for 
any  addition  to  his  reputation  because  of  the  attribution  to  him 
by  so  many  fanatics  of  the  authorship  of  Shakespeare's  plays. 

Strangely  enough,  he  also  says  that 

Macaulay  is  much  more  responsible  for  his  reputation  than  is 
usually  thought;  —  his  favorite  geese  were  nearly  all  swans,  in 
his  eyes.^ 

We  accept  the  last  clause  of  the  statement,  but  repudiate  the 
preceding  one.  Francis  Bacon's  reputation  rests  upon  more 
permanent  foundations  that  Macaulay's  unstable  opinions. 
The  source  of  Walsh's  diatribe  is  found  in  De  Maistre's  lurid 
work  in  which  he  declares  Bacon  to  have  been  a  charlatan  and 
impostor,  and  he  "preached  science,  but  like  his  church  with- 
out a  mission";  derides  his  "De  Augmentis"  and  avers  that 
the  "Novum  Organum"  is  worthy  of  Bedlam.^ 
Says  Spedding :  — 

He  could  follow  Gilbert  in  his  enquiries  concerning  the  load- 
stone, and  he  was  not  silent  about  him,  but  refers  to  him  fre- 
quently, with  praise  both  of  his  Industry  and  his  method;  censur- 
ing him  only  for  endeavoring  to  build  a  universal  philosophy  upon 
so  narrow  a  basis.  So  again  with  regard  to  Galileo.  The  direct 
revelations  of  the  telescope  were  palpable,  and  he  was  not  silent 
about  them;  but  hailed  the  Invention  as  "  of  memorable  consider^ 

*  James  J.  Walsh,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Popes  and  Science,  pp.  283-84.  New  York, 
1911. 

*  Joseph  de  Malstre,  Examen  de  la  Philosophie  de  Bacon.  Paris,  1836. 

341 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

ation,^^  —  a  thing  '' worthy  of  mankind.^'  There  was  no  doubt 
that  it  brought  within  the  range  of  vision  things  invisible  before, 
but  when  it  came  to  the  inference  deducible  from  the  phenomena 
thus  revealed,  he  could  no  longer  speak  with  confidence.  It  was 
then  ^'from  this  point  it  seems  to  he  shozvn^^  and  "  how  far  hy  dem- 
onstration belief  in  this  method  may  he  safely  held,^'  the  language 
of  a  man  who  did  not  feel  certain  in  his  own  mind  whether  the 
demonstration  was  conclusive  or  not,  —  which  is  the  natural  con- 
dition of  a  man  who  does  not  thoroughly  understand  it.^ 

Had  it  not  occupied  too  much  space  we  would  have  quoted 
Bacon's  own  expressions  in  full,  but  Spedding  has  briefly  and 
simply  summed  them  up. 

Bacon,  too,  it  is  objected,  was  not  a  lover  of  mathematics, 
and  it  is  concluded,  somewhat  hastily,  could  not  have  been  a 
great  scientist.  We  are  quite  willing  to  accept  the  statement 
that  he  did  not  possess  the  true  mathematical  mind.  Had  he 
been  so  endowed,  it  is  certain  that  we  should  not  be  writing 
this  book.  Mathematical  poetry  would  hardly  be  worth  dis- 
puting about.  He  has  been  assailed  with  ridicule  for  failing 
to  accept  the  Copernican  system  of  astronomy,  the  truth  of 
which  is  now  so  firmly  estabUshed;  but  how  was  it  then? 
Many  of  the  best  thinkers  did  not  adopt  it.  What,  too,  was 
the  exact  situation  of  affairs  ^  Bruno,  who  afterwards  suffered 
martyrdom  at  Rome  for  his  opinions,  visited  England  in  1583.^ 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  were  then  utterly  neglecting  the  teach- 
ing of  natural  philosophy.  To  Oxford,  Bruno,  whose  fame  had 
preceded  him,  repaired,  and,  being  versed  in  the  system  of 
Copernicus,  hoped  to  introduce  its  study  into  that  university. 
He  has  been  represented  as  a  perfervid  enthusiast,  and  he 
doubted  not  to  interest  the  faculty  of  the  institution  in  his 
plans ;  but  the  learned  and  ultra-conservative  doctors  of  Ox- 
ford did  not  yield  readily  to  the  views  of  the  brilliant  and  elo- 
quent Italian,  and  they  stoutly  maintained  the  old  faith  which 

*  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  vi,  p.  444.    Italicized  words  our  translation. 

*  Green,  Giordano  Bruno ,  his  Life,  etc.  Buffalo,  1889.  Cf.  Moritz  Carriere, 
Life,  etc.  London,  1887. 

342 


FRANCIS  BACON 

they  had  inherited,  that  the  sun  revolved  about  the  earth, 
which  was  ocularly  evident,  and  though  Bruno  argued  much 
better  in  favor  of  the  new  but  less  evident  faith,  that  the  re- 
verse was  true,  he  was  disappointed  in  the  result  of  his  mission. 
Bacon  was  then  twenty-three,  and  most  of  the  men  with 
whom  he  associated,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  were  opposed  to 
the  new  theory. 

He  was  then  busy  in  another  field  of  literary  activity,  and 
it  is  not  strange  that  he  spoke  of  Copernicus  as  "  a  man  who 
thinks  nothing  of  introducing  fictions  of  any  kind  into  nature, 
provided  his  calculations  turn  out  well " ;  a  fault  too  often  found 
in  the  polemical  contentions  of  the  time  when  men  sought  only 
to  support  preconceived  theories,  giving  little  heed  to  facts. 

It  was  many  years  after  Bacon's  death,  before  the  mists  of 
Aristotelian  philosophy  vanished  before  the  advancing  light 
of  a  new  age  of  scientific  empiricism,  and  yet  from  immemorial 
time  the  beaming  scroll  of  the  universe  had  hung  outspread 
before  the  eyes  of  men  in  all  its  splendor,  revealing  to  their 
vision  a  region  of  boundless  wonders  which  had  invited  ex- 
ploration in  vain.  The  achievements  of  Copernicus,  who  with 
the  eyes  of  a  seer  had  explored  the  infinite  regions  of  space, 
were  slow  of  acceptance;  yet  of  all  men  Bacon  should  have 
welcomed  them,  for  he  as  fully  recognized  the  importance  of 
the  study  of  phenomena  as  Bruno,  both  of  whom  regarded  the 
universe  as  a  perfection  of  mechanism,  designed  by  its  Creator 
among  other  beneficent  purposes  for  the  study  of  men,  and 
their  consequent  advancement  toward  a  larger  knowledge  of 
Him.  We  know  that  Rawley  says  that 

Before  he  left  Cambridge,  when  but  sixteen,  he  first  fell  into 
the  dislike  of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle;  not  for  the  worthless- 
ness  of  the  author,  to  whom  he  would  always  ascribe  higher  at- 
tributes, but  for  the  unfruitfulness  of  the  way;  being  a  philoso- 
phy (as  his  lordship  used  to  say)  only  strong  for  disputations  and 
contentions,  but  barren  of  the  production  of  works  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  life  of  man,  in  which  mind  he  continued  to  his  dying  day.  ^ 
^  Rawley,  Life,  etc.,  p.  37. 

343 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Let  us  quote  a  few  of  numerous  authorities  upon  his  scien- 
tific attainments  whose  opinions  are  of  value. 
Says  Professor  Fowler:  — 

The  resuh  of  Bacon's  "First  Vintage"  is  remarkable  in  the 
history  of  science.  Anticipating  the  theory  of  heat  now  gener- 
ally accepted,  he  defines  it  as  "a  motion,  expansive,  restrained, 
and  striving  amongst  the  smaller  particles  of  bodies."  Even  the 
modern  theory  as  to  the  undulatory  character  of  this  motion 
seems  to  be  anticipated  in  the  following  passage,  which  is  quoted 
with  approbation  by  Professor  Tyndall,  "The  third  specific  differ- 
ence is  this,  that  heat  is  a  motion  of  expansion,  not  uniformly  of 
the  whole  body  together,  but  in  its  ultimate  particles;  and  at  the 
same  time  checked,  repelled,  and  beaten  back,  so  that  the  parti- 
cles acquire  a  motion,"  —  it  is  surely  a  striking  testimony  to  his 
genius  that,  in  his  main  conception  of  heat  as  an  expansion  and 
oscillatory  motion  amongst  the  minute  particles  of  matter,  he 
should  have  anticipated  the  precise  conclusion  at  which,  after 
the  predominance,  for  a  long  time,  of  a  different  theory,  the  most 
eminent  physicists  have  at  length  arrived. 

Fowler  also  says  that 

He  ought  to  have  the  credit  of  having  detached  the  conception  of 
attraction  from  that  of  magnetism.^ 

Says  Professor  Nichol: — 

Bacon's  anticipations  in  physical  science  are  like  those  of  the 
"  Faerie  Queene,"  about  the  star's  flight  of  an  imagination  almost 
as  unique  in  prose  as  Shakespeare's  in  verse.  He  was  the  first 
philosophic  spokesman,  in  being  the  first  to  fully  recognize  the 
increasing  purpose  of  the  time. 

And  quoting  his  remarks  upon  the  circumnavigation  of  the 

orlnhp    Vip  rnnfimipQ*  — 


globe,  he  continues: 


In  this  and  similar  passages  we  have  the  air  of  the  same  breezes 
that  blow  through  "The  Tempest"  —  and  much  of  the  "Faerie 
Queene"  —  the  Queen  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Virginia. 

»  Thomas  Fowler,  M.  A.,  F.S.A.,-5afow,  p.  120.  New  York,  iSSi.Cf.  Tyndall, 
Heat  as  a  Mode  of  Motion,  Appendix  to  chap.  11,  ihid.^  339, 3d  ed.;  and  Fowler's 
Novum  Organum.  Oxford,  1 878. 

344 


FRANCIS  BACON 

This  wholly  independent  association  of  Bacon  with  the  author 
of  the  "Shakespeare"  and  "Spenser"  works  is  striking,  but  is 
by  no  means  an  isolated  case.  Many  acute  thinkers,  uncon- 
scious of  its  bearing  upon  the  question  of  a  common  author- 
ship of  these  works,  have  done  the  same.  Nichol  further 
says: — 

The  fact  that  Bacon,  during  his  life,  took  the  unpopular  side  of 
several  questions,  that  he  was  disgraced  for  an  offence  now  se- 
verely judged,  and  died  when  there  was  no  one  adequate  and  will- 
ing to  defend  him,  is  enough  to  explain  the  character  condensed 
in  Pope's  memorable  line,  expanded  in  Macaulay's  Essay,  re- 
iterated in  Lord  Campbell's  summary,  and  assumed  by  Kuno 
Fischer  as,  in  some  measure,  a  basis  for  his  view  of  the  Baconian 
philosophy.^ 

Says  a  German  thinker:  — 

Francis  Bacon  is  still  regarded  by  his  countrymen  as  the  great- 
est philosopher  of  England,  and  in  this  opinion  they  are  perfectly 
right.  He  is  the  founder  of  that  philosophy,  which  is  called  the 
realistic,  which  exercised  so  powerful  an  influence  upon  even 
Leibnitz  and  Kant,  to  which  Kant  especially  was  indebted  for 
the  last  impulses  to  his  epoch-making  works,  and  to  which  France 
paid  homage  in  the  eighteenth  century. ^ 

Playfair,  quoting  his  remarks  on  color,  concludes  that 

He  may  be  considered  as  very  fortunate  in  fixing  on  these  ex- 
amples: for  it  was  by  means  of  them  that  Newton  afterwards 
found  out  the  composition  of  light. 

And  he  further  says: — 

The  power  and  compass  of  a  mind  which  could  form  such  a 
plan  beforehand,  and  trace  not  merely  the  outline,  but  many  of 
the  most  minute  ramifications  of  science  which  did  not  yet  exist, 
must  be  an  object  of  admiration  to  all  succeeding  ages.  .  .  . 
Bacon  has  classified  facts  and  explained  their  peculiar  advan- 
tages as  instruments  of  investigation.^ 

^  John  Nichol,  Francis  Bacon:  his  Life  and  Philosophy,  pp.  5,  vii.  Edinburgh, 
1888. 

2  Kuno  Fischer,  Francis  Bacon  of  Ferulam,  p.  xii.   London,  1857. 

3  John  Playfair,  Outlines  of  Natural  Philosophy,  p.  3.  Edinburgh,  1819. 

34.5 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Says  John  Morley :  — 

The  French  Encyclopedia  was  the  direct  fruit  of  Bacon's  mag- 
nificent conceptions.  Professor  Adamson  has  well  put  it  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  "The  great  leader  in  the  reformation 
of  modern  science."  ^ 

And  Dean  Church:  — 

The  world  has  agreed  to  date  from  Bacon  the  systematic  re- 
form of  natural  philosophy,  the  beginning  of  an  intelligent  at- 
tempt, which  has  been  crowned  by  such  signal  success,  to  place 
the  investigation  of  nature  on  a  solid  foundation."  ^ 

Says  Macaulay: — 

He  moved  the  intellects  that  moved  the  world. 

All  this  is  said  of  the  philosophical  and  scientific  works 
which  he  published  over  his  own  name.  What  other  works 
did  he  write  which  would  authorize  a  contemporary  to  liken 
him  to  a  great  Roman  playwriter .?  Stratfordians  deny  that  he 
ever  wrote  any  such  works,  yet  John  Davies,  one  of  Bacon's 
"good  pens"  who  is  said  to  have  scribbled  the  names  of  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare  in  the  Northumberland  Manuscript,  called 
Bacon  "Our  EngUsh  Terence."  Why  did  he  apply  the  title  to 
Bacon  .f*  Terentius  Publiuswas  the  slave  of  Terentius  Lucanus, 
by  whose  name  he  was  called.  Cicero  tells  us  that  plays  bear- 
ing his  name,  the  admiration  of  the  Romans,  were  believed  to 
have  been  written  by  C.  Laelius,  and  Montaigne  observes  that 

Could  the  perfection  of  eloquence  have  added  any  lustre  propor- 
tionable to  the  merit  of  a  great  person,  certainly  Scipio  and  Lae- 
lius had  never  resigned  the  honor  of  their  comedies  to  an  African 
slave,  for  that  the  work  was  theirs,  the  beauty  and  excellency  of 
it  do  sufficiently  declare;  besides  Terence  himself  confesses  as 
much. 

If  any  man  knew  the  connection  of  Bacon  with  the  "  Shake- 
speare" Works  it  was  John  Davies;  hence  the  term  he  used 

^  John  Morley,  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopedists,  vol.  i,  p.  120.  London,  1881. 
*  R.  W.  Church,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  Bacon,  p.  213.  New  York,  1884. 


FRANCIS  BACON 

was  peculiarly  felicitous,  for  the  "Terence"  Works,  upon 
which  were  expended  "all  the  luxuriancies  and  delicacies  of 
the  Latin  tongue"  will  always  bear  the  name  of  the  African 
slave. 

Bacon's  name  has  been  associated  often  with  that  of 
the  actor  by  writers  unquestionably  of  independent  judg- 
ment. 

Said  Dr.  Kuno  Fischer,  in  a  work  on  the  philosophy  of 
Bacon  sixty-eight  years  ago:  — 

The  same  affinity  for  the  Roman  mind,  and  the  same  want  of 
sympathy  with  the  Greek,  we  again  find  in  Bacon's  greatest  con- 
temporary, whose  imagination  took  as  broad  and  as  comprehen- 
sive a  view  as  Bacon's  intellect.  .  .  .  Here  Bacon  and  Shake- 
speare met,  brought  together  by  a  common  interest  in  those 
objects  and  the  attempt  to  depict  and  copy  them. 

And  he  remarks  upon  what  he  regards  as  an  astonishing  fact 
but  one  easily  explained,  that 

Bacon  does  not  even  mention  Shakespeare  when  he  discourses 
upon  dramatic  poetry,  but  passes  over  this  department  of  poetry 
with  a  general  and  superficial  remark  that  relates  less  to  the  sub- 
ject Itself  than  to  the  stage  and  Its  uses.  As  far  as  his  own  age 
is  concerned,  he  sets  down  the  moral  value  of  the  stage  as  ex- 
ceedingly trifling.  But  the  affinity  of  Bacon  to  Shakespeare  is  to 
be  sought  in  his  moral  and  psychological,  not  in  his  aesthetlcal 
views  .  .  .  however,  even  in  these  there  is  nothing  to  prevent 
Bacon's  manner  of  judging  mankind,  and  apprehending  charac- 
ters from  agreeing  perfectly  with  that  of  Shakespeare;  so  that 
human  life,  the  subject-matter  of  all  dramatic  art,  appeared  to 
him  much  as  it  appeared  to  the  great  artist  himself.  ...  Is  not 
the  Inexhaustible  theme  of  Shakespeare's  poetry  the  history  and 
course  of  human  passions.^  And  it  is  this  very  theme  that  is  pro- 
posed hy  Bacon  as  the  chief  problem  of  moral  philosophy. 

Says  Gervinus:  — 

That  Shakespeare's  appearance  upon  a  soil  so  admirably  pre- 
pared was  neither  marvelous  nor  accidental,  is  evidenced  even 
by  the  corresponding  appearance  of  such  a  contemporary  as 
Bacon. 

347 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

And  Emerson:  — 

Shakespeare  was  the  father  of  German  literature:  it  was  on  the 
introduction  of  Shakespeare  into  German  by  Lessing,  and  the 
translation  of  his  works  by  Wieland  and  Schlegel,  that  the  rapid 
burst  of  German  literature  was  most  intimately  connected.^ 

Why  do  Stratfordians  now  severely  avoid  coupling  these 
names  together?  Perhaps  Yardley,  whom  we  have  heretofore 
quoted,  has  given  us  the  reason. 

Of  the  facility  and  rapidity  with  which  he  wrote  and  spoke 
we  have  the  testimony  of  Rawley  and  Jonson.  Says  the  for- 
mer:— 

With  what  sufficiency  he  wrote  let  the  world  judge,  and  with 
what  celerity  he  wrote  them,  I  can  best  testify. 

Jonson,  who  is  worth  listening  to,  and  trustworthy  when 
not  inditing  a  eulogy  to  help  the  sale  of  a  book,  gives  us  this 
graphic  description  of  Bacon's  eloquence :  — 

Yet  there  happened  in  my  time  one  noble  speaker,  who  was 
full  of  gravity  in  his  speaking.  His  language  (where  he  could 
spare  or  pass  by  a  jest)  was  nobly  censorious.  No  man  ever  spake 
more  neatly,  more  pressly,  more  weightily,  suffered  less  empti- 
ness, less  idleness,  in  what  he  uttered.  No  member  of  his  speech 
but  consisted  of  his  own  graces.  His  hearers  could  not  cough,  nor 
look  aside  from  him,  without  loss.  He  commanded  when  he 
spoke,  and  had  his  judges  angry  and  pleased  at  his  devotion.  No 
man  had  their  affections  more  in  his  power.  The  fear  of  every 
man  that  heard  him  was,  lest  he  should  make  an  end.^ 

Tobie  Matthew,  who  knew  him  perhaps  more  intimately 
than  any  one  of  his  friends,  describes  him  as 

A  creature  of  incomparable  abilities  of  mind,  of  sharp  and 
catching  apprehension,  large  and  faithful  memory,  plentiful  and 
sprouting  invention,  deep  and  solid  judgment,  a  man  so  rare  in 
knowledge  of  so  many  several  kinds,  indowed  with  the  facility  of 
expressing  it  in  so  elegant,  significant,  so  abundant,  and  yet  so 
choice  and  ravishing  array  of  words,  of  metaphors,  and  allusions, 

^  Representative  Men,  p.  201.   Boston,  1865. 
2  Ben  Jonson,  Discoveries ^  p.  46.   London,  1841. 

348 


FRANCIS  BACON 

as  perhaps  the  world  has  not  seen  since  it  was  a  world.  I  know 
that  this  may  seem  a  great  hyperbole,  and  strange  kind  of  riotous 
excess  of  speech;  but  the  best  means  of  putting  me  to  shame  will 
be  for  you  to  place  any  man  of  yours  by  this  of  mine.^ 

Pierre  Amboise,  Boener,  and  many  other  contemporaries 
speak  of  him  in  equally  laudatory  terms. 

We  have  endeavored  by  a  careful  study  of  Bacon's  char- 
acter and  genius,  as  reflected  in  his  literary  remains,  recorded 
in  history,  and  depicted  by  his  critics,  friendly  and  otherwise, 
to  give  the  reader  a  fair  portraiture  of  him.  That  he  partook 
of  the  abuses  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived  we  do  not  deny  ; 
Bacon  condemned  himself  for  this.  The  mistake  which  he 
made  was  in  seeking  public  office,  which  resulted,  as  it  com- 
monly did,  in  disaster.  His  highest  aspiration  impelled  him  to 
a  student's  life,  and  this  life  offered  him  the  greatest  happi- 
ness. He  was  not  alone  in  being  tempted  to  seek  the  gHttering 
trappings  of  power.  The  greatest  and  best  men  of  England, 
before  and  since,  have  done  the  same,  and  come  to  grievous 
ends.  He  has  been  charged  with  being  present  with  the  law 
officers  of  the  Crown  at  the  examination  under  torture  of 
the  Puritan  clerg3^man,  Peacham,  who  was  condemned  for 
high  treason,  having  written,  though  not  preached  a  sermon 
containing  severe  reflections  upon  authority;  and  has  been 
blamed  for  obsequious  deference  to  James  and  Buckingham. 
With  regard  to  the  first  of  these  criticisms,  Campbell  himself 
in  another  connection  furnishes  an  answer  in  these  words :  — 

It  would  be  very  unjust  to  blame  persons  who  were  engaged  in 
sixteenth  century  burning  witches  or  heretics,  as  if  these  acts  of 
faith  had  occurred  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.^ 

To  the  charge  of  truckling  to  those  in  authority,  while  we 
to-day  may  regard  as  unmanly  the  ceremonious  approach  and 
adulatory  address  to  those  occupying  the  seats  of  power,  they 

^  Collection  of  Letters,  etc. 

2  Lives  of  Lord  Chancellors,  etc.,  vol.  in,  p.  114. 

349 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

were  simply  forms  of  etiquette  in  Bacon's  day,  and  necessary 
to  secure  notice. 

His  bitterest  mortification  was  exclusion  from  Parliament, 
where  he  had  achieved  his  most  brilliant  successes.  His  final 
appeal  to  the  King,  not  long  before  his  death,  is  manly,  and 
gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  suffering  he  endured  when  he  con- 
templated the  blot  upon  his  fame  which  would  descend  to 
posterity. 

To  prostrate  myself  at  Your  Majesty's  feet,  I,  your  ancient 
serv^ant,  now  sixty-four  years  old  in  age,  and  three  years  four 
months  old  in  misery,  I  desire  not  from  Your  Majesty  means,  nor 
place,  nor  employment,  but  only,  after  so  long  a  time  of  expia- 
tion, a  complete  and  total  remission  of  the  sentence  of  the  Upper 
House,  to  the  end  that  blot  of  ignominy  may  be  removed  from  me, 
and  from  my  memory  with  posterity;  that  I  die  not  a  condemned 
man,  but  may  be  to  Your  Majesty,  as  I  am  to  God  nova  creatura. 
This  my  most  humble  request  granted,  may  make  me  live  a  year 
or  two  happily,  and  denied  will  kill  me  quickly.^ 

James,  who  well  knew  the  methods  employed  to  inflame 
public  opinion,  did  not  relieve  him  of  his  disabiUties.  Doubt- 
less his  enemies  were  too  insistent  upon  prolonging  his  dis- 
grace. Fowler  says  that 

A  limited  pardon,  the  exception  being  that  of  the  Parliamentary 
sentence,  appears  to  have  been  sealed  by  the  King  in  Novem- 
ber, 1621.  But  the  history  of  this  pardon  is  attended  with  some 
obscurity.^ 

This  date  does  not  agree  with  the  date  of  his  appeal.  Bacon, 
however,  continued  his  work.  Taking  a  severe  cold  while  pur- 
suing an  experiment  in  refrigeration,  he  died  on  Easter  morn- 
ing, Sunday,  April  9,  1626. 

He  was  buried  in  St.  Michael's  Church  in  St.  Albans  accord- 
ing to  his  wish,  and  this  epitaph,  here  translated  from  the 
original  Latin,  placed  upon  his  monument,  which  bears  his 
effigy  seated  in  an  attitude  of  contemplation :  — 

^  Life  and  Letters ^  vol.  v,  p.  583.  ^  Bacon,  p.  23. 

3SO 


FRANCIS  BACON 

Francis  Bacon  Baron  of  Verulam  Viscount  St.  Albans 

Or  By  More  Conspicuous  titles 

Of  Science  the  Light,  of  Eloquence  the  Law, 

Sat  thus, 

Who  after  all  Natural  Wisdom 

And  Secrets  of  Civil  Life  he  had  unfolded 

Nature's  Law  fulfilled. 

Let  compounds  be  Dissolved. 

In  the  year  of  our  Lord,  MDCXXVI. 

Of  his  Age  LXVL 

Of  such  a  Man 

That  the  Memory  might  remain, 

Thomas  Meautys 

Living  his  Attendant 

Dead  his  Admirer 

Placed  this  Monument. 

It  may  be  objected  that  as  this  is  but  a  brief  sketch  of  Ba- 
(^on's  life,  too  much  time  has  been  expended  upon  the  charges 
against  him  of  malfeasance  in  office,  and  that  they  have  little 
relation  to  his  literary  genius,  and  are  not  therefore  pertinent 
to  the  purpose  of  this  book.  To  this  the  author  pleads  in  justi- 
fication, that  with  many  this  episode  in  his  life  tends  to  close 
the  door  against  any  consideration  of  his  great  merits.  Sic 
eunt  fata  hominum, 

HIS    ROLE 

The  works  published  by  Francis  Bacon  and  his  executors 
under  his  own  name  are  numerous,  and  cover  a  wide  field  of 
literary  activity.  Their  perusal  reveals  him  as  a  great  law- 
yer, philosopher,  and  classical  scholar;  a  scientist,  theologian, 
statesman,  poet,  linguist ;  his  knowledge  was  remarkable ;  in- 
deed, as  sober  a  writer  as  Spedding  denominates  him  "the 
glory  of  his  age  and  nation,  the  adorner  and  ornament  of 
learning";  and  even  Campbell  announces  his  death  in  these 
words :  — 

Thus  died,  in  the  66th  year  of  his  age,  Francis  Bacon,  not 
merely  the  most  distinguished  man  who  ever  held  the  Great  Seal 

3SI 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  England,  but,  notwithstanding  all  his  faults,  one  of  the  great- 
est ornaments  and  benefactors  of  the  human  race.^ 

It  is  to  Francis  Bacon  that  English  literature  owes  the  essay 
as  an  intellectual  force.  Its  introduction  occurred  at  a  time  in 
English  history  distinguished  for  its  intellectual  activity,  its 
romantic  spirit,  its  adventurous  achievement  and  the  gross 
ignorance  of  its  masses.  Its  intellectual  supremacy  was  lim- 
ited to  the  few,  the  chief  of  whom  was  Bacon,  a  friend  and 
admirer  of  Montaigne ;  some  have  thought  an  imitator,  but  he 
differs  from  the  Frenchman  as  the  gun  of  Napoleon  from  that 
of  the  ancien  regime.  It  is  true  that  there  is  a  resemblance, 
for  both  deal  with  the  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  but  the 
former  touches  his  subject  with  a  grave  directness  rarely  ex- 
emplified by  the  latter. 

The  few  poems  which  bear  his  name  have  never  become 
popular.  While  Campbell  says :  — 

His  English  Essays  and  Treatises  will  be  read  and  admired  by 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  aU  over  the  world  to  the  most  distant 
generations  — 

he  concludes  that 

His  ear  had  not  been  formed  nor  his  fancy  fed,  by  a  perusal  of  the 
divine  productions  of  Surrey,  Wyat,  Spenser,  and  Shakespeare, 
or  he  could  not  have  produced  rhymes  so  rugged,  and  terms  of 
expression  so  mean.  Few  poets  deal  In  finer  imagery  than  is  to 
be  found  in  the  writings  of  Bacon,  but  if  his  prose  Is  sometimes 
poetical,  his  poetry  is  always  prosaic.  ^ 

This  is  the  most  formidable  argument  that  has  been  ad- 
duced against  the  claim  that  Bacon  was  the  author  of  the 
"  Shakespeare "  Works,  yet  it  is  not  unanswerable. 

The  poet  and  philosopher  belong  to  different  zones ;  the  one, 
a  land  of  enchantment,  so  alluring  that  he  who  adventures  in 
it,  forgetting  material  bonds  for  a  while,  becomes  a  seer;  the 
other,  a  land  of  mountain  peaks  and  misty  vales  which  compel 

^  Lives  of  Lord  Chancellors  of  England j  vol.  in,  p.  33. 
*  Ibid. J  p.  130. 

352 


FRANCIS  BACON 

the  soul  to  contemplation,  and  a  consciousness  of  the  mystery 

of  being.  The  greatest  genius  is  he  who  enjoys  an  inheritance 

in  both  these  realms  of  delight  whose  fruits  are  as  unlike  as 

the  zones  to  which  they  belong.  In  later  life  he  may  think  to 

transplant  from  one  to  the  other  the  fruits  which  in  more 

youthful  days  he  loved,  but  they  inevitably  lose  in  generous 

flavor.  This  may,  in  a  measure,  account  for  some  criticism  of 

Bacon,  who  was  both  poet  and  philosopher,  as  was  Milton. 

Both  have  given  to  the  world  poetic  renderings  of  David's 

Psalms,  and  both  have  left  works  of  philosophy  which  may 

well  be  compared. 

Milton's  rendering  of  the  eighty-eighth  Psalm  is  as  follows: 

Thou  in  the  lowest  pit  profound 

Hast  set  me  all  forlorn, 

Where  thickest  darkness  hovers  round 

In  horrid  deeps  to  mourn, 

Thy  wrath  from  which  no  shelter  saves 

Full  sore  doth  press  on  me; 

Thou  breaks't  upon  me  all  thy  waves, 

And  all  thy  waves  break  me.^ 

Yet  the  hand  which  penned  the  foregoing  lines  penned  the 

"Comus"  from  which  we  extract  the  following:  — 

Can  any  mortal  mixture  of  Earth's  mould 
Breathe  such  divine  enchanting  ravishment? 
Sure  something  holy  lodges  in  that  breast, 
And  with  these  raptures  moves  the  vocal  air 
To  testify  his  hidden  residence: 
How  sweetly  did  they  float  upon  the  wings 
Of  silence,  through  the  empty-vaulted  night, 
At  every  fall  smoothing  the  raven  down 
Of  darkness  till  it  smiled!   I  oft  have  heard 
My  mother  Circe  with  the  Sirens  three 
Amidst  the  flow'ry-kirtled  Naiades 
Culling  their  potent  herbs,  and  baleful  drugs, 
Who  as  they  sung,  would  take  the  prison'd  soul 
And  lap  it  in  Elysium. 

There  is  no  question  that  Milton  was  a  great  poet,  yet  here 
we  have  two  specimens  of  his  verse.  Who  would  suppose  that 

^  The  italics  are  in  the  original. 

353 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  version  of  the  eighty-eighth  Psalm  and  the  extract  from 
"Comus"  were  fruit  of  the  same  tree? 

This  is  from  Bacon's  version  of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
seventh  Psalm: — 

When  as  we  sat  all  sad  and  desolate, 
By  Babylon  upon  the  river's  side, 
Eas'd  from  the  tasks  which  in  our  captive  state 
We  were  enforced  daily  to  abide, 

Our  harps  we  had  brought  with  us  to  the  field, 
Some  solace  to  our  heavy  souls  to  yield. 

But  soon  we  found  we  fail'd  of  our  account, 

For  when  our  minds  some  freedom  did  obtain, 
Straightways  the  memory  of  Sion  Mount 
Did  cause  afresh  our  wounds  to  bleed  again; 
So  that  with  present  griefs,  and  future  fears. 
Our  eyes  burst  forth  into  a  stream  of  tears. 

Hierusalem,  where  God  his  throne  hath  set. 

Shall  any  hour  absent  thee  from  my  mind? 
Then  let  my  right  hand  quite  her  skill  forget, 
Then  let  my  voice  and  words  no  passage  find; 
Nay,  if  I  do  not  thee  prefer  in  all 
That  in  the  compass  of  my  thoughts  can  fall. 


And  thou,  O  Babylon,  shalt  have  thy  turn 
By  just  revenge,  and  happy  shall  he  be. 
That  thy  proud  walls  and  tow'rs  shall  waste  and  burn. 
And  as  thou  didst  by  us,  so  do  by  thee. 

Yea,  happy  he,  that  takes  thy  children's  bones. 
And  dasheth  them  against  the  pavement  stones. 

Says  Spedding:  — 

Of  these  verses  of  Bacon's  it  has  been  usual  to  speak  not  only  as 
a  failure,  but  as  a  ridiculous  failure,  a  censure  in  M^hich  I  cannot 
concur.  I  should  myself  infer  from  this  sample  that  Bacon  had  all 
the  natural  faculties  which  a  poet  wants  ;^  a  fine  ear  for  metre,  a 
fine  feeling  for  imaginative  effect  in  words,  and  a  vein  of  poetic 
passion. 

The  psalms  which  Bacon  paraphrased,  seven  in  number, 
were  dedicated  to  George  Herbert,  a  friend  and  author  of  such 

*  That  is,  requires. 

354 


FRANCIS  BACON 

verse,  and  were  written  late  in  life  during  his  confinement  by 
illness,  which  is  not  a  condition  especially  conducive  to  poetic 
expression.  In  the  dedicatory  note  he  calls  them  the  "poor  ex- 
ercise of  my  sickness." 
The  following  is  a  verse  from  the  ninetieth  Psalm :  — 

Thou  earnest  man  away  as  with  a  tide; 

Then  down  swim  all  his  thoughts  that  mounted  high; 

Much  like  a  mocking  dream  that  will  not  hide 

But  flies  before  the  sight  of  waking  eye; 

Or  as  the  grass,  that  cannot  term  obtain 

To  see  the  Summer  come  about  again. 

"The  thought  in  the  second  line,"  says  Spedding,  "  could  not 
well  be  fitted  with  imagery,  words,  and  rhythm  more  apt  and 
imaginative,  and  there  is  a  tenderness  of  expression  in  the  con- 
cluding couplet  which  comes  manifestly  out  of  a  heart  in  sen- 
sitive sympathy  with  nature." 

The  following  is  a  verse  from  the  one  hundred  and  fourth 
Psalm :  — 

Father  and  King  of  Powers,  both  high  and  low, 
Whose  sounding  fame  all  creatures  serve  to  blow; 
My  voice  shall  with  the  rest  strike  up  thy  praise 
And  carol  of  thy  works  and  wondrous  ways. 
But  who  can  blaze  thy  beauties,  Lord,  aright? 
They  turn  the  brittle  beams  of  mortal  sight: 
Upon  thy  head  thou  wear'st  a  glorious  crown 
All  set  with  virtues,  polish'd  with  renown; 
Thence  round  about  a  silver  veil  doth  fall 
Of  crystal  light,  mother  of  colours  all.^ 

Of  these  lines  Spedding  says :  — 

The  heroic  couplet  could  hardly  do  its  work  better  in  the  hands 
of  Dryden. 

Why,  then,  may  we  not  ask,  if  Milton  wrote  the  eighty- 
eighth  Psalm,  and  also  some  of  the  finest  poetry  in  the  English 
language,  —  some  have  thought  superior  to  that  published 
under  the  name,  "Shakespeare,'*  —  why  should  it  be  impos- 
sible for  the  versifier  of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-seventh 

^  Spedding, /iTor^j-,  etc.,  vol.  XIV,  p.  113. 

3SS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Psalm  to  do  the  same  ?  Though  he  has  been  spoken  of  as  being 
ignorant  of  poetry,  he  extolled  its  influence  and  possessed  a 
deep  knowledge  of  poetic  metre.  That  he  wrote  more  than  one 
volume  of  poetry  we  know  from  his  legacy  to  his  friend,  the 
French  ambassador,  of  his  books  "  curiously  rhymed."  If  such 
an  item  had  been  found  in  the  will  of  the  Stratford  actor, 
would  it  not  be  considered  ample  proof  of  his  authorship  of 
the  plays .?  We  do  not  base  upon  this,  however,  such  a  claim 
for  Bacon,  but  speak  of  it  only  as  one  of  those  many  straws 
which  help  us  in  forming  a  better  understanding  of  him.  We 
feel  warranted  in  giving  specimens  of  the  prose  of  both  writers, 
first  one  from  Milton's 

Treatise  on  Education 

The  end,  then,  of  Learning  is  to  repair  the  sins  of  our  first 
parents  by  regaining  to  know  God  aright,  and  out  of  that  knowl- 
edge to  love  him,  to  imitate  to  be  like  him  as  we  may  the  nearest 
by  possessing  our  souls  of  true  virtue,  which  being  united  to  the 
heavenly  grace  of  faith,  makes  up  the  highest  perfection.  But 
because  our  understanding  cannot  in  the  body  found  itself  but  on 
sensible  things,  nor  strive  so  clearly  to  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
things  invisible,  as  by  orderly  covering  over  the  visible  and  infe- 
rior creature,  the  same  method  is  necessarily  to  be  followed  in  all 
discreet  teaching. 

From  Bacon^s  ^^Advancement  of  Learning'' 

Neither  is  the  imagination  simply  and  only  a  messenger;  but 
it  is  either  invested  with,  or  usurps  no  small  authority  in  itself, 
besides  the  simple  duty  of  the  messenger.  For  it  is  as  well  said  by 
Aristotle,  "That  the  mind  has  over  the  body  that  commandment 
which  the  lord  has  over  the  bondsman,  but  that  reason  has  over 
the  imagination  that  commandment  which  a  magistrate  has  over 
a  free  citizen  who  may  come  also  to  rule  in  his  turn." 

Men  differ  on  all  subjects,  but  perhaps  there  is  none  upon 
which  they  differ  more  than  poetry,  for  to  recognize  it,  the  ear 
must  be  attuned  to  divine  harmonies ;  hence  a  good  critic  of 
poetry  must  be  a  poet.  By  this  it  is  not  meant  that  he  must 
have  written  poetry,  for  he  may  not  possess  the  rare  art  of 

3S6 


FRANCIS  BACON 

expression,  but  his  soul  must  be  like  a  sensitive  harp  whose 
chords  are  in  concord  with  poetic  harmonies. 

This  explains  the  diversity  of  opinion  respecting  poets  great 
and  small ;  otherwise,  why  should  the  critic  of  the  immortal 
Keats  have  lashed  him  with  ridicule  to  his  death,  or  Pepys 
say  that  "Twelfth  Night"  and  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew" 
were  silly;  "Othello"  mean;  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  the  worst 
play  he  ever  heard  in  his  life;  and  "Midsummer  Night's 
Dream"  the  most  insipid  and  ridiculous;  or  Horace  Walpole 
call  Dante  "Extravagant,  absurd,  disgusting;  in  short,  a 
Methodist  parson  in  Bedlam";  or  Hacket  entitle  Milton,  "A 
petty  school-boy  scribbler" ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  why  should 
the  poet  Shelley  declare  that  "Lord  Bacon  was  a  poet";  and 
Lytton  praise  him  so  highly  as  to  say  that  "  Poetry  pervaded 
the  thought,  it  inspired  the  similes,  it  hymned  in  the  majestic 
sentences  of  the  wisest  of  mankind"?  We  know  how  the 
critics  sent  Foe  into  obscurity,  and  how  recently  they  have 
raised  him  to  what  seems  to  be  a  pedestal  of  immortal  fame ; 
how  Tupper  had  his  admirers,  and  Walt  Whitman  his  devo- 
tees. But  it  is  needless  to  multiply  instances  of  this  com- 
plexion ;  they  are  to  be  found  on  every  hand,  and  applicable  to 
every  subject  of  human  experience. 

For  three  centuries  Bacon  has  stood  among  the  foremost  of 
the  world's  great  thinkers.  His  life  was  passed  in  unremitting 
activity,  for  to  his  great  intellect  was  added  a  capacity  and 
love  of  literary  work  rarely  possessed  by  man.  At  his  death  he 
bequeathed  his  unpublished  manuscripts  to  two  of  his  friends 
with  a  view  to  future  publication.  One  of  these.  Sir  William 
Boswell,  then  Minister  to  Holland,  carried  them  with  him  to 
that  country,  and  placed  them  in  the  hands  of  Isaac  Gruter, 
a  learned  friend  of  their  author,  who,  in  1633,  published  at 
Leyden  the  "Sapientia  Veterum."  This  was  followed  five 
years  later  by  the  "Historia  Ventorum,"  and  during  the  next 
fifteen  years  ten  more  of  his  most  important  works  were  given 
to  the  world  by  the  faithful  Gruter.    But  there  were  other 

3S7 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

works  which  were  never  published,  and,  unfortunately,  have 
disappeared  from  public  ken.  What  were  these  works  ?  Sped- 
ding,  Bacon's  biographer,  after  years  of  labor  devoted  to  the 
study  of  them,  has  to  conclude  that  it  is  a  subject  involving  a 
great  secret. 

Gruter,  who  was  in  frequent  conference  with  Boswell 
while  he  was  engaged  in  publishing  the  works  now  familiar  to 
us,  was  anxious  to  publish  the  others,  but  for  some  unknown 
reason  was  held  back.  He  says  in  the  last  book  published  by 
him  that  "they  ought  not  to  be  long  suppressed";  and  in  a 
letter  from  Maestricht,  March  20,  1655,  he  wrote  Rawley, 
Bacon's  old  chaplain,  secretary  and  closest  friend :  — 

If  my  Fate  would  permit  me  to  live  according  to  my  Wishes, 
I  would  flie  over  into  England,  that  I  might  behold  of  the  Feru- 
lamian  Workmanship,  and  at  least  make  my  Eyes  witnesses  to  it, 
if  the  Merchandize  be  yet  denied  to  the  Publick.  At  present,  I 
will  support  the  wishes  of  my  impatient  desire,  with  hope  of  see- 
ing one  Day  those  which  being  committed  to  faithful  Privacie, 
wait  the  time  "till  they  may  safely  see  the  Light,  and  not  be 
stifled  in  their  Birth." 

This  was  twenty-nine  years  after  Bacon's  death,  and  Rawley 
was  advanced  in  years.  No  wonder  his  friend  Gruter  was 
getting  impatient  to  have  this  "Merchandize,"  which  Rawley 
kept  from  the  printer,  disclosed.  It  may  be  objected  that 
these  could  not  have  been  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  as  these 
were  then  known,  but  the  First  and  Second  Folios  gave  only  a 
portion  of  the  dramatic  works,  as  we  have  attempted  to  show, 
and  we  claim  that  it  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  there  were 
others,  and  that  it  might  have  been  a  subject  of  discussion 
whether  it  were  wise  to  disclose  the  secret,  and  give  all  the 
"Verulamian  Workmanship"  to  the  world. 

What  were  Rawley's  motives  for  keeping.them  in  the  dark, 
we  can  only  hope  to  learn.  All  that  he  tells  us  is  that  Bacon 

hid  his  works  for  another  age.  Mente  Fidebor,  by  the  mind  I  shall 
be  seen.     . 

3S8 


FRANCIS  BACON 

And  again:  — 

Silence  were  the  best  celebration  of  that  which  I  mean  to  com- 
mend. My  praise  shall  be  dedicated  to  the  mind  itself.  The  mind 
is  the  man,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  mind.  A  man  is  but  what  he 
knoweth. 

A  study  of  Bacon's  works  reveals  his  clear  outlook  upon 
the  world.  He  saw  it  divided,  though  by  no  arbitrary  line  of 
demarcation,  into  two  classes,  the  wise  and  the  unwise,  or, 
more  accurately,  the  ignorant  and  the  less  ignorant.  The 
dominant  purpose  of  his  life  was  to  convey  to  mankind,  as  best 
he  could,  the  light  of  knowledge,  and  he  adopted  a  system  for 
accomplishing  this  purpose  which  he  tells  us  was  suggested 
by  an  ancient  usage,  though  he  should  apply  it  differently. 
This  was  to  "deliver"  his  philosophy  by  two  different  meth- 
ods to  mankind,  so  that  it  might  be  received  by  all  in  the 
course  of  time,  for,  he  says :  — 

It  may  truly  be  objected  to  me  that  my  philosophy  will  require 
an  age,  a  whole  age  to  commend  it,  and  very  many  ages  to  es- 
tablish it. 

And  in  another  place  he  forbears  to  explain  it 

chiefly  because  it  would  open  that,  which  in  this  work  I  determine 
to  reserve.^ 

One  part  of  this  system  has  been  "  delivered  "  to  the  world, 
and  it  does  not  seem  strange  that  the  other  is  sought.  Was 
it  explained  or  comprised  in  the  manuscripts  which  Gruter 
was  so  desirous  of  having  published  .f*  This  may  be  doubted. 
Spedding  laboriously  puzzles  over  the  "great  secret"  of 
Bacon's  dual  system,  vainly  striving  to  find  a  satisfactory 
solution.  He  says :  — 

Bacon  professes  that  it  is  not  his  intention  to  destroy  the  re- 
ceived philosophy,  but  rather  that  from  henceforth  there  should 
be  two  coexisting  and  allied  systems  —  the  one  sufficient  for  the 
ordinary  purposes  of  life,  and  such  as  would  satisfy  those  who  are 

^  Spedding,  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  182. 

3S9 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

content  with  probable  opinions  and  commonly  received  notions 
—  the  other  for  the  sons  of  science  who  desire  to  attain  to  cer- 
tainty and  to  an  insight  into  the  hidden  things  of  nature.^ 

In  other  words,  he,  Bacon,  would  "deliver"  to  mankind  in 
two  ways,  one  in  a  popular  form,  which  all  could  receive,  and 
the  other,  to  use  Bacon's  own  words,  — 

To  selected  auditors  or  wits  of  such  sharpness  as  can  pierce  the 
veil,  one  more  open;  the  other,  a  way  of  delivery  more  secret. 

The  latter  method  is  plainly  disclosed  in  his  philosophical 
works,  but  where  are  we  to  seek  for  the  former  which  he 
dechnes  to  disclose  ?  "  Because,"  he  says,  "  it  would  open  that, 
which  in  this  work  I  determine  to  reserve. ^^  ^ 

To  get  a  view,  as  nearly  unbiased  as  possible,  of  Bacon's 
true  place  in  the  realm  of  thought,  one  should  not  fail  to  read 
the  dialogue  preceding  the  "  Parasceve,"  which  embodies  the 
opinions  of  two  acute  thinkers,  who,  of  all  who  have  hitherto 
devoted  themselves  to  the  subject,  were  best  fitted  by  training 
and  experience  to  discuss  it  dispassionately. 

Says  Spedding:  — 

If  the  great  secret  which  he  had,  or  thought  he  had,  in  his  keep- 
ing, lay  only  or  even  chiefly  in  the  perfection  of  the  logical  ma- 
chinery—  in  the  method  of  induction;  if  this  method  was  a  kind  of 
mechanical  process  —  an  organum  or  engine  —  at  once  "wholly 
new,"  "universally  applicable,"  "in  all  cases  infallible,"  and  such 
as  anybody  might  manage;  if  his  explanation  of  this  method  in 
the  second  book  of  the  "Novum  Organum"  is  so  incomplete  that 
it  leaves  all  the  principal  practical  difficulties  unexplained;  and 
if  it  were  a  thing  which  nobody  but  himself  had  any  notion  of,  or 
any  belief  in;  how  is  it  that  during  the  remaining  five  years  of 
his  life  —  years  of  eager  and  unremitting  labour,  devoted  almost 
exclusively  to  the  exposition  of  his  philosophy  —  he  made  no 
attempt  to  complete  the  explanation  of  it?  Why  did  he  leave 
the  "Novum  Organum"  as  it  was. ^  .  .  .  It  was  not  that  he  had 
changed  his  opinion  as  to  the  value  of  it;  his  sense  of  the  diffi- 
culties may  have  increased,  his  views  as  to  details  may  have  al- 

*  Spedding,  The  Works y  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  155-56.  ^  Ibid.^  vol.  11,  pp.  9-39* 

360 


FRANCIS  BACON 

tered;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  he  ever  lost  any  part  of 
his  faith  either  in  the  importance  or  the  practicability  of  it.  .  .  . 
Two  years  after  the  publication  of  the  first  part  of  the  "Novum 
Organum,''  and  three  years  before  his  death,  he  speaks  of  the 
second  part  as  a  thing  yet  to  be  done,  but  adds,  '^  which,  however,  I 
have  in  my  mind  considered  and  set  in  order  J^  It  was  not  that  he 
thought  the  description  he  had  already  given  sufficient:  in  the 
winter  of  1622,  he  tells  us  that  there  are  ^'not  a  few  and  those  of 
prime  importance  "  still  wanting.  It  was  not  that  he  wanted  either 
time  or  industry;  for  during  the  five  succeeding  years  he  completed 
the  "De  Augmentis,"  and  composed  his  histories  of  the  "Winds," 
of  "Life  and  Death,"  of  "Dense  and  Rare";  his  lost  treatise  on 
"Heavy  and  Light,"  his  lost  "Abecedarium  Naturae,"  his  "New 
Atlantis,"  his  "Sylva  Sylvarum."  Why  did  he  employ  no  part 
of  that  time  in  completing  the  description  of  the  new  machine?^ 

Though  Spedding  fails  to  enlighten  us  in  this  regard,  we  are 
at  liberty  to  ask  if  any  literature  of  Bacon's  time,  philosophy 
in  a  popular  form,  such  as  he  proposes,  can  be  found .?  Doubt- 
less there  would  be  a  consensus  of  opinion,  that  only  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works  present  to  the  world  philosophy  in  its 
most  popular  form,  and,  were  Bacon  their  author,  would  satis- 
factorily complete  the  system  which  he  planned.  Thus  the 
great  secret  would  find  a  happy  solution. 

Says  the  German  critic,  Bormann:  — 

Whoever  places  the  " Novum Organum"  (1620)  and  the  "Ency- 
clopedy  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum"  (1623)  of  Francis  Bacon  side 
by  side  with  Mr.  William  Shakespeare's  "Comedies,  Histories, 
and  Tragedies"  (1623)  must  certainly  regard  them  as  kindred 
works  inasmuch  as  all  three  appeared  in  the  same  stately  form.^ 

The  acute  mind  of  Carlyle  with  ahnost  the  clear  discern- 
ment of  a  seer,  reflecting  upon  the  philosophy  of  his  favorite 
author,  Shakspere,  remarks  that 

there  is  an  understanding  manifested  in  the  construction  of 
Shakespeare's  Plays,  equal  in  profoundness  to  the  great  Lord 
Bacon's  "Novum  Organum," 

^  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  11,  pp.  27-29.     Italicized  words  our  translation. 

2  Edwin  Bormann,  The  Shakespeare  Secret,  p.  2.  London  and  Leipzig,  1895. 

361 


.^ 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

But,  he  concludes,  as  any  one  inevitably  does  when  he  com- 
pares them,  that  the 

"Novum  Organum"  and  all  the  intellect  you  will  find  in  Bacon 
is  of  quite  a  secondary  order;  earthy,  material,  poor  in  compari- 
son with  this. 

Surely  Philosophy,  in  the  severe  garb  of  Logic,  presents  an 
aspect  far  more  earthy  and  material  than  Philosophy  in  the 
ethereal  robes  of  Poetry.  Has  not  Carlyle  unintentionally 
qualified  himself  as  an  expert  witness  in  behalf  of  the  propo- 
sition, that  the  works  so  long  accredited  to  the  Stratford  actor 
supplement  those  of  Bacon,  and  together  complete  the  great 
philosopher's  dual  system? 

But  do  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  really  supplement  the 
works  of  Bacon?  It  will  be  admitted  at  the  outset  by  all  that 
they  "deliver"  themselves  to  the  minds  of  even  the  unlettered 
in  a  pictorial  manner,  calculated  to  attract  and  instruct,  and 
only  a  casual  examination  of  them  reveals  the  fact  that  they 
treat  of  kindred  subjects.  The  Essays  of  Bacon  deal  with 
human  qualities,  as  Love,  Truth,  Envy,  Revenge,  Ambition, 
Friendship,  Anger,  and  the  like,  and  their  author  "delivers" 
them  to  minds  capable  of  the  profoundest  thought.  The 
"Shakespeare"  Works  treat  of  Ambition  ("Macbeth") ;  Love 
("Romeo  and  Juliet") ;  Avarice  ("The  Merchant  of  Venice") ; 
Jealousy  ("Othello");  Envy  ("Julius  Caesar");  Hypocrisy 
("Measure  for  Measure");  and  so  on,  and  the  author  "deliv- 
ers" through  them  instruction  to  minds  of  even  ordinary 
capacity.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  unreason- 
able to  assume  that  together  they  fairly  fulfil  the  require- 
ments of  the  philosophical  system  outlined  by  Bacon.  That 
this  was  his  intention  appears  from  his  own  words,  which  we 
must  accept,  or  conclude  that  he  left  his  plan  uncompleted. 

The  contention  that  hewas  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works  still  remains  invincible,  and  finds  support  in  the  works 
themselves,  as  well  as  those  known  to  the  world  as  his.  To  two 
of  these  supports  so  long  unnoticed  we  will  now  give  attention. 

362 


^O     cj?^-*^ 


FRANCIS  BACON 


The  Promus.  This  book  particularly  illustrates  Bacon's 
habits  of  thought,  his  keen  interest  in  shaping  new  words  for 
the  expression  of  ideas,  and  his  care  in  garnering  every  sheaf 
of  knowledge  which  he  found.  It  is  evidently  one  of  the  hand- 
books of  his  literary  workshop,  or  "scriptorium"  as  he  called 
it,  to  which  Jonson,  Bushell,  Hobbes,  Davies,  and  others, 
whom  he  called  "his  good  pens,"  were  attached.  That  it  was 
in  active  existence  up  to  the  publication  of  the  Shaksperian 
Folio  and  "De  Augmentis  Scientiarum,"  we  know  from  his 
correspondence  with  Matthew.  Bacon's  liberality  to  those 
about  him,  leaving  his  money,  when  he  was  in  funds,  accessi- 
ble to  all  without  question  of  its  use,  leads  us  to  believe  that 
he  exercised  the  same  liberality  in  other  things;  in  fact,  his 
relations  to  those  he  employed  Spedding  shows  to  have  been 
truly  affectionate,  many  of  his  manuscripts  being  endorsed 
to  his  sons,  "ad  filios." 

That  no  English  author  has  ever  employed  so  large  a  vocab- 
ulary as  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  is  unques- 
tioned, and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  number  of  new  words 
added  to  the  language.  This  already  is  indicated  by  Murray's 
New  English  Dictionary,  the  first  volume  of  which  was  pub- 
lished in  1883.  This  embodied  the  results  of  twenty-six  years 
of  research.  Seven  volumes  only  have  been  published  in  the 
thirty  years  which  have  passed,  and  it  is  likely  to  take  fifty 
years  from  the  publication  of  the  first  volume  to  complete  it. 
Its  most  valuable  service  to  the  world  will  be  found  in  what 
we  may  well  call  its  genealogy  of  the  English  tongue.  Not  only 
does  it  aim  to  give  every  word  in  the  language,  but  the  date  of 
its  birth,  and  the  name  of  its  progenitor.  Of  course  it  is  impos- 
sible at  the  present  time  to  determine  accurately  the  number 
of  words  originated  by  different  authors,  but  the  seven  voir 
umes  already  published  reveal  to  us  with  vitascopical  distinct- 
ness hundreds  of  words  originated  by  the  author  of  the  plays. 
This  accords  with  Macaulay's  well-known  declaration  that  he 
"carried  the  idiomatic  powers  of  the  English  tongue  to  the 

363 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

highest  perfection,  and  to  whose  style  every  ancient  and  every 
modern  language  contributed  something  of  grace,  of  energy, 
and  of  music/' 

Robertson,  in  a  futile  display  of  numerous  words  used  in 
common  by  other  writers,  especially  by  Greene,  Marlowe, 
Peele,  and  Kyd,  a  fact  familiar  to  every  student  of  Tudor  and 
Stuart  literature,  eager  to  discredit  his  heretical  opponents, 
seems  to  have  been  unaware  of  Bacon's  lingual  accomplish- 
ments. The  futility  of  his  argument  that  the  actor,  whose 
ignorance  he  labors  to  show,  used  an  immense  number  of  words 
in  common  use,  becomes  evident  when  we  consider  the  esti- 
mate, heretofore  regarded  as  valid,  that  the  vocabulary  of  an 
English  peasant  of  the  actor's  time  comprised  less  than  four 
hundred  words,  and  that  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works  employed  a  vocabulary  of  twenty-one  thousand  words, 
or  three  times  the  number  used  by  Milton,  a  large  number  of 
which  never  had  been  used  by  any  previous  English  writer. 
To  quote  against  the  actor  Robertson's  own  words  applied  to 
Bacon's  cipher,  this  presents  "  a  critical  chimera  which  stag- 
gers judgment  and  beggars  comment." 

In  the  "  Promus,"  which  was  not  intended  for  publication, 
Bacon  recorded  proverbs,  phrases,  apt  thoughts,  and  even 
expressive  and  hitherto  unused  words  to  serve  him  in  his  writ- 
ings when  occasion  offered,  a  custom  not  uncommon  among 
writers  and  public  speakers.  The  extent  of  his  lingual  ac- 
complishments is  indicated  by  the  languages  from  which 
he  culled  them,  —  Greek,  Latin,  Spanish,  French,  Italian, 
and  English,  in  all  of  which  he  appears  to  have  been  an 
adept.  His  Latin  has  been  questioned,  but  it  is  doubtful  if 
an  author  of  note  in  his  time  has  escaped  similar  criticism. 
On  many  points  of  Latin  construction  authorities  often 
differ. 

This  manuscript,  consisting  of  fifty  folio  sheets  numbered 
from  82  to  132,  he  dignified  by  the  title  of  the  "Promus  of 
Formularies  and  Elegancies";  in  other  words,  a  storehouse 

364 


FRANCIS  BACON 

of  forms  and  graceful  expressions,^  and  it  is  of  considerable 
moment  in  our  study  of  his  philosophical  system.  The  first 
question  which  naturally  occurs  to  us  is,  What  use  did  he 
make  of  it  in  his  published  writings  ?  Our  curiosity  is  soon 
gratified,  for  the  deeper  we  examine  it,  the  clearer  we  see  the 
use  he  made  of  its  contents,  not  always  verbally,  but  some- 
times suggestively  as  clues  to  thoughts  of  larger  scope. 

Having  satisfied  ourselves  on  this  point,  another  question 
still  more  insistent  presses  itself  upon  us;  namely,  if  Bacon 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  "  Shakespeare"  Works,  ought  we 
not  to  find  evidence  that  he  made  the  same  use  of  the  "  Pro- 
mus"  in  them  that  he  did  in  his  other  works.?  With  increased 
curiosity  we  apply  ourselves  to  their  critical  examination,  and 
are  rewarded  far  beyond  our  expectations ;  in  fact,  we  not  only 
find  in  them  hundreds  of  the  same  thoughts  which  are  found 
in  the  "  Promus,"  but  many  in  precisely  the  same  verbal  form. 
"All's  well  that  ends  well,''  "  Believe  me,"  are  among  favorite 
expressions  often  repeated  in  the  plays ;  the  latter  more  than 
fifty  times.  Such  expressions  disclose  individuality  quite  as 
much  as  elaborate  thoughts.  The  following  excerpts  from 
the  "Promus"  indicated  by  numbers  of  the  folios,  are  culled 
from  the  655  entries  in  them:  — 

Folio    Qui  prete  a  Tami  perd  au  double  =  Who  lends  to  a  friend 
130         loses  double. 

For  love  oft  loses  both  itself  and  friend. 

Hamlet^  i,  3. 

99    To  stumble  at  the  threshold. 

Men  that  stumble  at  the  threshold. 

S  K.  Henry  VI,  iv,  7. 

84B  Galen's  compositions,  not  Paracelsus'  separations. 

So  I  say  both  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus. 

J ir s  fFdly  etc. f  iiy  s^ 

^  Harleian  Collection,  no.  701 7,  British  Museum. 

•36s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

95     El  buen  suena  el  mal  vuela  =  Good  dreams,  ill  waking. 

Dreame  as  I  have  done, 
Wake  and  finde  nothing. 

Cymheline,  v,  4. 

93     Good  wine  needs  no  bush. 

Good  wine  needs  no  bush. 

As  You  Like  It,  Epilogue. 

85     A  fools  bolt  is  soon  shot. 

A  Fools  Bolt  is  soon  shot. 

K,  Henry  F,  iii,  7,  and  Js  You  like  It,  v,  4. 

I  will  shoot  my  fools  bolt. 

Letter  to  Essex. 

92B  An  yll  wind  that  bloweth  no  man  to  good. 

The  yll  wind  which  blows  no  man  to  good. 

2  Henry  IF,  v,  3. 

10 1     Clavum  clavo  pellere  =  With  one  nail  to  drive  out  a 
nail. 

One  fire  drives  out  one  fire, 
One  Naile,  one  Naile. 

Coriolanus,  iv,  6. 

As  one  naile  by  strength  drives  out  another, 
So  the  remembrance  of  my  former  love,  etc. 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Ferona,  11,  4. 

96B    A  man  must  tell  you  tales  to  find  your  ears. 

Friends,  Romans,  countrymen,  lend  me  your  ears. 

Julius  Ccesar,  iii,  2. 
Fasten  your  eare  on  my  advisings. 

Measure  for  Measure,  iii,  I. 

We  doe  request  your  kindest  eares. 

Coriolanus,   11,  2. 

131     Innocence  parle  avec  joie  sa  defence  =  Innocence  speaks 
with  joy  her  defence. 

The  Trust  I  have  is  in  mine  innocence. 

2  K.  Henry  FI,  iv,  4. 
366 


FRANCIS  BACON 

92     Seldom  cometh  the  better. 

Seldom  cometh  the  better. 

Richard  III,  11,  3. 

Ill  Diluculo  surgere  salubrium. 

Diluculo  surgere  —  thou  knowest. 

Twelfth  Night,  11,  3. 

96B  Thought  is  free. 

Thought  is  free. 

Tempest,  iii,  2,  and  Twelfth  Night,  11,  3. 

Thoughts  are  no  subjects. 

Measure  for  Measure,  v,  2. 

The  above  are  perhaps  sufficient  to  show  how  much  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works  are  indebted  to  the  "Promus,"  and 
with  it  alone  for  a  brief  the  case  for  the  plaintiff  might  be 
successfully  prosecuted.  There  is,  however,  in  Bacon's  other 
works  quite  as  convincing  evidence  of  identity  of  expression 
and  thought  to  safeguard  his  case,  and  it  may  be  well  to 
examine  it. 

Opinion 

That  the  rate  of  a  thing  chosen  for  Opinion,  and  not  for  truth, 
is  this,  that  if  a  man  thought  that  what  he  doth  should  never 
come  to  light,  he  would  never  have  done  it. 

Bacon's  Colors  of  Good  and  Evil, 

A  plague  of  opinion,  a  man  may  weare  it  on  both  sides  like  a  leather 
Jerkin. 

m       Troilus  and  Cressida,  iii,  3. 

Slippery  Stairs  to  Honors 

The  Stairs  to  honores  are  steep,  the  standing  slippery,  the  re- 
gresse  a  downfall. 

Advancement  of  Learning, 

The  Art  o'  th'  Court 
As  hard  to  leave  as  keepe;  whose  top  to  climbe 
Is  certaine  falling,  or  so  slipp'ry,  that 
The  feare  's  as  bad  as  falling. 

CymbelinCy  iii,  3. 

367 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  passions  of  the  mind  work  upon  the  body,  the  impressions 
following.  Feare  causeth  paleness,  trembling,  the  standing  of 
the  hair  upright;  starting. 

Sylva  Syharum. 

Thy  knotty  and  combined  locks  to  part, 
And  each  particular  haire  to  stand  on  end, 
Like  Quilles  upon  the  fretfull  Porcupine. 

Hamlet,  i,  5. 

Your  bedded  haire  like  life  in  excrements. 
Start  up  and  stand  on  end. 

Ibid,  III,  4. 

Adversity 

Adversity  is  not  without  comforts  and  hopes.  It  was  a  high 
speech  of  Seneca,  "that  .  .  .  the  good  things  that  belong  to  ad- 
versity are  to  be  admired." 

Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversitie 

Which  like  the  toad,  ugly  and  venemous, 

Weares  yet  a  precious  Jewell  in  his  head. 

As  You  like  It,  11,  i . 

Rats  quitting  ti  fallen  house 

It  is  the  wisdom  of  rats  that  will  be  sure  to  leave  a  house  be- 
fore it  fall. 

Essay  on  Wisdom 

Instinctively  the  very  rats  have  quit  it. 

Tempest,  i,  2. 

Revealing  Day 

Revealing  day  through  every  crannie  peeps. 

From  manuscript  of  Bacon, 

Revealing  day  through  every  crannie  spies. 

Lucrece, 

Money  Breeding 

It  is  against  Nature  for  money  to  beget  money. 

Essay  on  Usury, 

Antonio.  Or  is  your  gold  and  silver  Eues  and  Rams? 
Shylock.  I  cannot  tell,  I  make  it  breede  as  fast. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  i,  3. 

368 


FRANCIS  BACON 

Music  of  the  Spheres 

If  we  place  any  belief  in  the  opinion  of  Plato  and  Cardan,  a 
divine  harmony  is  generated  from  the  intercourse  of  the  Spheres 
which  we  cannot  hear  on  account  of  the  greatness  of  the  distance. 

De  Natures  Arcanis,  etc. 

How  aptly  this  thought  finds  expression  in  the  "Merchant 

of  Venice":  — 

Looke  how  the  floore  of  heaven 

Is  Thicke  inlayed  with  patines  of  bright  gold 

There 's  not  the  smallest  orbe  which  thou  beholdst 

But  in  his  motion  like  an  Angell  sings 

Still  quiring  to  the  young  eyed  Cherubins. 

V,  I. 

This  thought  of  a  sympathy  existing  between  the  senses, 
explainable  by  the  theory  that  all  the  senses  are  modifications 
of  the  sense  of  feeling,  is  further  illustrated  by  Bacon  in  his 
"Advancement  of  Learning,"  in  the  following  striking  man- 
ner:— 

The  quavering  upon  a  stop  in  music  gives  the  same  delight  to 
the  ear  that  the  playing  of  light  upon  the  water,  or  the  sparkling 
of  a  diamond  gives  to  the  eye — splendit  tremulo  sub  lumine  pontus. 

In  "Twelfth  Night"  this  thought  is  strikingly  repeated:  — 

That  straine  agen;  it  had  a  dying  fall; 
O  it  came  ore  my  eare  like  the  sweet  sound 
That  breathes  upon  a  banke  of  Violets: 
Stealing  and  giving  Odour. 

1,1. 

The  last  two  lines  find  a  still  closer  expression  in  Bacon's 
"Essay  on  Gardens":  — 

And  because  the  breath  of  flowers  is  far  sweeter  in  the  air 
(when  it  comes  and  goes  like  the  warbling  of  music). 

Doves 
The  following  has  been  noticed  by  several  writers :  — 
Bacon  was  extremely  fond  of  doves,  which  Lady  Bacon  was 
wont  to  send  him  on  occasions.  The  following  letters  written 

369 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

by  her  from  Gorhambury  to  her  son  Anthony,  the  first  in 
April,  and  the  second  in  October,  1595,  reveal  a  notable  coin- 
cidence :  — 

I  send  between  your  brother  and  you  the  first  flight  of  my  dove 
house,  II  dozen  and  IV  pigeons;  XII.  to  you  and  XVI.  to  your 
brother,  because  he  was  wont  to  love  them  better  than  you  from 
a  boy. 

I  send  you  XII.  pigeons,  my  last  flight,  and  one  ring  dove  be- 
sides. 

I  have  here  a  dish  of  Doves  that  I  would  bestow  upon  your  worship. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  11,  2. 

I  have  brought  you  a  Letter  and  a  couple  of  Pigeons  here. 

Titus  Jndronicus,  iv,  4. 

To  hear  with  the  eyes 

It  seemeth  both  in  ear  and  eye  the  Instrument  of  sense  hath  a 
sympathy  or  similitude  with  that  which  giveth  the  reflection. 

This  remarkable  thought  is  from  Bacon's  "Natural  His- 
tory," in  which  he  treats  of  the  Consent  and  Dissent  of  Visibles 
and  Audibles,  yet  it  finds  expression  in  Shakspere  as  follows: 

O,  learn  to  read  what  silent  love  hath  writ, 
To  hear  with  eies  belongs  to  love's  fine  wit. 

Sonnet  xxiii. 

The  World  a  Stage 

I  have  given  the  rule  when  a  man  cannot  fitly  play  his  own 
part;  if  he  have  not  a  friend  he  may  quit  the  stage. 

Essay  on  Friendship, 

But  men  must  know  that  in  this  Theatre  of  man's  life,  it  is  re- 
served only  for  God  and  Angels  to  be  lookers  on. 

Advancement  of  Learning, 

All  the  world 's  a  stage, 

And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players. 

As  You  Like  It,  11,  7. 

Antonio.  I  hold  the  world  but  as  the  world,  Gratlano; 
A  stage  where  every  man  must  play  a  part. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  i,  i. 


FRANCIS  BACON 

Tides  and  Currents 

In  third  place  I  set  down  reputation  because  of  the  peremp- 
tory tides  and  currents  it  hath,  which  if  they  be  not  taken  in  their 
due  time  are  seldom  recovered.  > 

Proficiency  and  AdvancemenU^y^ 

There  is  a  Tide  in  the  affayres  of  men 

Which  taken  at  the  Flood  leades  on  to  Fortune. 

Julius  Coesar,  iv,  3. 

Parallels  like  the  foregoing  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely, 
but  so  many  have  been  pointed  out  by  different  writers  that 
we  think  best  to  limit  ourselves  to  a  few  examples. 

That  similar  coincidences  of  thought  and  expression  can  be 
found  in  other  writers  of  Elizabeth's  reign  we  well  know. 
Many  may  be  found  in  all  periods  among  the  authors  of 
antiquity  and  of  recent  times.  Contemporary  authors  living 
under  similar  conditions  are  likely  to  think  and  express  them- 
selves in  similar  ways,  but  it  is  safe  to  affirm  —  ruling  out 
Spenser,  Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Peele,  as  we  hope  to  show 
valid  reasons  for  doing  —  that  no  two  authors  of  Elizabeth's 
time  can  be  found,  who  at  all  compare  in  this  regard  with  those 
to  whom  the  works  under  discussion  are  attributed,  without 
being  open  to  the  charge  of  plagiarism.  The  coincidences  are 
too  numerous  to  dispose  of  satisfactorily  to  dispassionate 
minds.  The  late  Mr.  Reed,  one  of  the  profoundest  of  Shak- 
sperian  scholars,  has  said  that  "The  argument  from  parallel- 
isms in  general  may  be  stated  thus:  one  parallelism  has  no 
significance;  five  parallelisms  attract  attention;  ten  suggest 
inquiry;  twenty  raise  a  presumption;  fifty  establish  a  prob- 
abiHty;  one  hundred  dissolve  every  doubt." 

He  gives  in  his  book,  "Bacon  and  Shakespeare  Parallel- 
isms," eight  hundred  and  eighty-five,  all  most  striking. 
Others  have  added  to  these,  and  we  believe  the  number  can 
be  doubled.  The  puerile  attempts  to  break  the  force  of  Mr. 
Reed's  evidence  are  pitiable  indeed.  We  would  give  Mr. 
Charles  Crawford's  curious  attack  upon  the  "  Promus  "  were  it 

371 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

worthy  of  sufficient  space,  but  its  display  of  egotism,  false  as- 
sumptions and  immaturity  of  thought,  forbid  it. 

THE   NORTHUMBERLAND  MANUSCRIPT 

In  the  large  mass  of  Francis  and  Anthony  Bacon's  corre- 
spondence preserved  in  English  archives,  the  name  of  the 
Stratford  actor  has  not  been  found.  So  far  as  written  evidence 
goes,  both  Francis  and  Anthony  were  unaware  of  his  existence 
and  of  the  "  Shakespeare"  Works.  We  know  that  Francis  was 
deeply  interested  in  dramatic  art,  and  that  Anthony  at  one 
time  changed  his  city  abode  in  order  to  be  near  the  playhouse ; 
yet  not  a  word  appears  even  in  their  most  familiar  correspond- 
ence to  indicate  that  the  man  whose  birthplace  is  now  the 
Mecca  of  deluded  pilgrims,  and  whose  name  was  then  on  some 
of  the  best  poetry  of  the  time,  was  known  to  them ;  though  he 
was  living  in  the  then  small  city  of  London,  and  had  appeared 
—  in  a  minor  capacity  it  is  true  —  at  Court  performances. 
This  silence  is  too  significant  to  be  ignored ;  it  was  intentional. 
Serving  as  a  mask,  it  was  prudent,  in  case  of  inquiry,  for 
Bacon  not  to  be  in  any  way  identified  with  him.  His  intimate 
acquaintance  with  "Richard  II"  is  evinced  by  his  statement 
to  the  Queen  that  the  author  had  purloined  "most  of  the  sen- 
tences of  Cornelius  Tacitus";  but  we  have  another  similarly 
significant  piece  of  evidence  in  a  volume  of  his  manuscripts, 
probably  not  written  later  than  1598,  and  only  discovered  in 
1867.  This  is  the  Northumberland  Manuscript,  or  "Confer- 
ence of  Pleasure,"  according  to  its  title.  Its  table  of  contents 
reveals  many  items,  as  speeches  written  for  Essex  in  1595,  and 
one  for  the  Earl  of  Sussex,  1596;  a  letter  written  for  Arundell 
to  the  Queen.  These  represent  a  kind  of  service  which  his 
pregnant  pen  often  rendered  to  his  friends.  Besides  there  are 
orations  at  Gray's  Inn,  and,  most  interesting  of  all,  the  plays 
of  "Richard  11"  and  "Richard  III." 

We  can  imagine  the  cruel  disappointment  of  the  discoverer 
of  this  precious  volume,  when  he  eagerly  turned  its  leaves  in 

372 


TITLE-PAGE   OF   BACON'S  VOLUME  OF   MANUSCRIPTS  FOUND  AT  NORTHUMBERLAND 
HOUSE  ONCE   CONTAINING  COPIES  OF  RICHARD  II  AND  RICHARD  Iin 

1  In  modern  script  with  portion  of  scribblings  expurgated. 


FRANCIS  BACON 

search  of  these  manuscript  plays,  and  found  that  they  had 
been  removed.  We  can  but  confess  to  a  lively  sympathy  for 
him,  having  had  similar  experiences  ourselves. 

There  are  other  interesting  items  in  the  volume;  its  title- 
page  has  been  scribbled  upon,  and  among  the  scribblings  we 
find  a  Latin  verse;  the  line,  *' Revealing  day  through  every 
cranny  peeps,"  which  is  better  than  the  same  line  in  "Lucrece," 
which  ends  with  the  word  "spies,"  a  forced  change  to  com- 
plete a  rhyme;  the  strange  word  " honorificabilitudino "  found 
extended  in  "Love's  Labours  Lost,"  published  in  1598; 
"Anthony  —  Baco  —  Bacon  —  By  Mr.  Francis  Bacon  — 
Sh-Shak  —  Will-William  Shakespeare — "  etc.,  many  times 
repeated.  We  give  this  title-page  in  modern  script,  eliminating 
a  portion  of  the  names  scribbled  upon  it,  but  leaving  several 
to  show  its  character  more  clearly,  and,  especially  the  line 
"By  Mr.  ffrauncis  William  Shakespeare,"  and  the  inverted 
word  "ffrauncis"  over  them.  The  curious  scrolls  at  the 
top  of  the  page  seem  to  have  been  a  fad  of  Bacon.  The 
same  scrolls  are  found  on  the  title-page  of  "Les  Tenures 
de  Monsieur  Littleton,"  annotated  in  the  handwriting  of 
Bacon. 

The  first  thought  is  that  the  juxtaposition  of  the  names 
Francis  Bacon  —  William  Shakespeare  is  startlingly  sugges- 
tive, and  the  inquiry  naturally  occurs.  Why  was  the  book 
despoiled  of  the  plays  .f*  The  answer  seems  evident.  The 
author's  lodgings  were  liable  to  be  visited  at  any  time  by  the 
pursuivants  in  search  of  evidence  against  Bacon's  friend  and 
employer,  Essex,  and  these  plays  would  have  proved  danger- 
ous evidence  against  him  as  a  participant  in  the  Earl's  treason. 
This  will  find  confirmation  from  a  consideration  of  the  play  of 
"Richard  IL" 

Richard  II,  when  it  first  appeared  on  the  stage,  contained 
a  scene  relating  to  the  dethronement  of  the  reigning  monarch, 
which  was  so  suggestive  that  it  excited  the  anger  of  the  Queen. 
Seemingly  to  mend  matters  it  was  printed  anonymously  with- 

373 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

out  the  objectionable  scene.  This  was  in  1597  in  which  year 
two  editions  were  published,  and  the  next  year,  the  actor 
having  become  a  householder  and  nominal,  if  not  de  facto  citi- 
zen of  Stratford,  it  was  again  printed,  this  time  with  the  name 
"William  Shakespeare"  on  its  title-page.  The  Queen,  always 
realizing  her  perilous  position,  did  not  forget  the  transgression 
of  the  author  in  the  first  instance,  for  being  some  time  after 
in  the  Tower  with  the  Keeper  of  the  Records  examining  his 
digest  of  the  Rolls,  and  coming  to  the  reign  of  Richard,  she 
impulsively  exclaimed,  to  the  confusion  of  the  obsequious 
official,  "I  am  Richard  II;  know  ye  not  that?" 

The  play  proved  unfortunate  for  all  concerned  except  the 
putative  author,  who  seems  to  have  been  fortunately  out  of 
the  way,  which  might  have  saved  him  an  ear  or  a  hand.  As  it 
was,  it  placed  Bacon,  whom  the  Queen  seems  to  have  sus- 
pected of  its  authorship,  in  a  perilous  position ;  added  weight 
to  the  trial  which  delivered  Essex  to  the  headsman ;  and  aided 
in  consigning  John  Hayward,  one  of  Bacon's  fellowship  at 
Gray's  Inn,  to  the  Tower,  where  he  wore  out  many  months  of 
precious  life.  Hayward  had  written  a  sketch  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  IV  which  he  dedicated  to  the  unfortunate  Essex,  and 
had  it  not  been  for  this  play,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  Queen  would 
have  displayed  so  much  violence  toward  him.  This  was 
shortly  before  the  open  rebellion  of  Essex,  and  when  the  plot- 
ters of  treason  desired  to  inflame  the  ever-smouldering  pas- 
sions of  the  multitude,  they  bethought  themselves  of  the  old 
play  as  a  promising  method  of  doing  so,  and,  says  the  record 
of  the  Council  prepared  by  Bacon:  — 

The  afternoon  before  the  Rebellion,  Merricke,  with  a  great 
company  of  others  that  were  all  in  the  action,  had  procured  to  be 
played  before  them  the  play  of  deposing  King  Richard  11.  Neither 
was  it  casual,  but  a  play  bespoken  by  Merricke,  and  not  so  only, 
but  when  it  was  told  him  by  one  of  the  players  that  the  play  was 
old,  and  that  they  should  have  loss  in  playing  it,  because  few 
would  come  to  it;  there  were  forty  shillings  extraordinary  given 
to  play  it,  and  so  thereupon  played  it  was. 

374 


FRANCIS  BACON 

Against  Hayward,  Elizabeth  was  especially  furious,  as  she 
saw  in  his  dedication  of  his  "  Henry  IV  "  to  Essex  evidence  of 
a  sinister  meaning,  and  she  dispatched  him  summarily  to  the 
Tower,  that  near  step  to  the  block.  Bacon  was  ordered  by  her 
to  proceed  in  the  case  against  Essex,  and  though  he  begged  to 
be  excused,  was  compelled  to  do  so.  This  enabled  him  to  limit 
inquiry  into  the  authorship  of  the  play  as  well  as  to  shield  Hay- 
ward.  In  doing  this  he  furnishes  us  with  an  interesting  glimpse 
of  his  embarrassing  position.  His  reply  to  his  associates  when 
he  was  assigned  the  part  of  investigating  the  matters  relating 
to  Hayward,  we  should  particularly  note. 

It  was  allotted  to  me  that  I  should  set  forth  some  undutiful 
carriage  of  my  Lord,  in  giving  occasion  and  countenance  to  a 
seditious  pamphlet  as  it  was  termed,  which  was  dedicated  unto 
him,  which  was  the  book  before  mentioned  of  King  Henry  the 
Fourth.  Whereupon  I  said  that  it  was  an  old  matter,  and  had 
no  manner  of  coherence  with  the  rest  of  the  charge,  being  matters 
of  Ireland,  and,  therefore,  that  /  having  been  wronged  by  bruits  be- 
fore, this  would  expose  me  to  them  more;  and  it  would  be  said  I  gave 
in  evidence  my  own  tales. 

It  should  be  noted  that  Ha3rward's  sketch  of  Henry  IV 
touched  upon  the  point  of  hereditary  succession.  The  play  of 
"Richard  II "  was  more  offensive,  and  more  perilous  to  Bacon, 
who  was  constantly  fencing  to  ward  off  inquiry  in  that  direc- 
tion, for  if  Hayward's  sketch  was  found  to  be  treasonable,  how 
much  more  the  play.  This  thought  appears  to  have  been 
uppermost  in  his  mind  when  the  Queen  sought  him  to  discuss 
the  subjects  of  his  investigation,  Hayward's  "Henry  IV," 
and  "Richard  II."  Evidently  the  latter  is  what  he  had  in 
mind  when  he  rather  ambiguously  alludes  to  the  subject  of 
discussion  as  being  "^  matter  which,  though  it  grew  from  me, 
went  after  about  on  other  s  names''  Is  not  this  a  plain  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  authorship  of  the  play  ? 

"The  Queen,"  says  Bacon,  "thinking  it  a  seditious  prelude 
to  put  into  the  people's  heads  boldness  and  faction,  said  she 
had  good  opinion  that  there  was  treason  in  it,  and  asked  if  I 

37S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

could  not  find  any  places  in  it  that  might  be  drawn  within 
case  of  treason ;  whereunto  I  answered,  for  treason  truly  found 
I  none,  but  for  felony  very  many.  And  when  her  Majesty 
hastily  asked  me  wherein?  I  told  her  'the  author  had  taken 
most  of  the  sentences  of  Cornelius  Tacitus  and  translated  them 
into  English,  and  put  them  into  his  text';"^  alluding  to 
"Richard  IL" 

Hayward,  however,  was  her  bird  in  the  hand,  and  she  vindic- 
tively urged  Bacon  to  find  something  upon  which  to  convict 
him.  The  influence  that  he  possessed  over  her  is  exhibited 
strikingly  in  this  episode.  Evidently  suspecting  that  he  knew 
more  about  the  subject  than  he  disclosed  to  her,  she  attacked 
his  most  sensitive  point,  by  declaring  that  the  pamphlet,  the 
subject  which  Bacon  tenaciously  held  her  to,  as  the  least 
dangerous,  "had  some  more  mischievous  author,  and  said, 
with  great  indignation,  that  she  would  have  him  racked  to 
produce  his  author."  To  this  Bacon  says  he  replied:  "Nay, 
madame,  he  is  a  doctor,  never  rack  his  person,  rack  his  stile ; 
let  him  have  pens,  ink  and  paper,  and  help  of  books,  and  be 
enjoined  to  continue  the  story  where  it  leaves  off,  and  I  will 
undertake,  by  collecting  the  stiles,  to  judge  whether  he  were 
the  author  or  no." 

Never  was  more  adroit  reply  made,  and  in  spite  of  her  bad 
qualities,  Elizabeth  was  quite  capable  of  appreciating  the 
fact;  indeed,  it  is  quite  possible  that  Bacon's  witty  treatment 
of  the  subject  prevented  her  from  seeking  some  more  pliant 
instrument  of  her  vengeance.  As  it  was  she  contented  herself 
with  keeping  Hayward  in  his  cage  while  she  lived. 

During  this  season  of  inquiry  it  may  be  asked,  Where  was 
the  nominal  author  of  the  play?  The  mystery  has  been  ex- 
plained by  the  statement  that  he  was  "probably"  in  hiding, 
and  that  the  mysterious  thousand  pounds  of  Southampton, 
who  was  involved  in  the  rebellion,  was  what  kept  him  out  of 
sight;  and,  indeed,  this  may  be  true,  for  Southampton  was 

^  Spedding.   Cf.  Works ^  etc.,  vol.  xiii,  p.  341. 

376 


EFFIGY  SURMOUNTING   MONUMENT 

From  photograph  loaned  by  William 
Stone  Booth,  Esq. 


FRANCIS  BACON 

then  in  danger  of  his  head,  and  would  have  paid  many  thou- 
sand pounds  to  save  it. 

In  this  account  of  the  play  and  pamphlet  we  have  endeav- 
ored to  avoid  the  confusion  into  which  those  who  have  treated 
them  seem  to  have  fallen,  caused,  perhaps,  by  Bacon's  ambig- 
uous language.  A  critical  examination,  we  feel  sure,  warrants 
our  treatment  of  them. 

The  fact  that  these  plays  in  manuscript  were  in  a  book  made 
up  of  Bacon's  writings,  coupled  with  what  he  says  relative  to 
the  play,  is  a  piece  of  evidence  of  their  authorship  by  him 
so  strong  that  ridicule  of  Baconian  logic  will  not  avail  with 
reasonable  minds.  The  trivial  objection  that  the  incriminat- 
ing table  of  contents  was  left  in  the  book  will  doubtless  be 
urged  against  us,  but  it  has  passed  into  a  proverb  that  culprits 
are  forgetful. 

The  contemporary  character  of  the  scribblings  are  unques- 
tionable. Whether  Bacon  wrote  them,  or  Davies,  one  of  his 
scribes,  does  not  particularly  affect  our  interest  in  them.  The 
word  "Honorificabilitudino"  is  interesting,  and  most  sugges- 
tive, as  it  is  found  in  "Love's  Labours  Lost,"  as  we  have  before 
said,  with  four  syllables  added. 

We  believe  that  the  unprejudiced  reader  will  conclude  that 
the  Northumberland  Manuscript  is  a  strong  link  in  the  chain 
of  evidence  in  favor  of  Bacon's  authorship  of  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works.  Had  we  one  as  strong  in  favor  of  the  actor's 
authorship  it  would  be  considered  unbreakable  by  his  friends. 
Consider  for  a  moment  what  it  would  be  to  the  Stratfordian 
cause,  if  a  manuscript  volume  of  pieces  known  to  have  been 
his  were  found  with  a  table  of  contents  comprising  the  titles 
of  "Richard  11"  and  "Richard  III,"  with  the  evidence  that 
they  had  been  removed  from  it.  What  meetings  would  be 
convened,  what  rejoicings  we  should  hear.  It  would  be  a 
proud  day  for  Lee  and  Robertson,  and  everybody  interested 
in  Shaksperian  copyrights. 


IX 


THE  SONNETS 


The  Sonnets  have  proved  to  be  a  treasure  trove  to  lit- 
erary faddists,  and  one  who  is  lavish  of  time  and  patience  to 
follow  them  in  their  wanderings  can  but  realize  how  limited 
is  human  endeavor  in  speculative  fields.  Books  galore  have 
been  written  to  discover  the  identity  of  "W.  H."  to  whom 
the  Sonnets  were  dedicated,  as  though  this  were  matter  of 
grave  importance.  One  writer  discerns  behind  the  mysteri- 
ous letters,  which  he  reverses,  Henry  Wriothesley;  others, 
William  Harvey,  William  Hart,  William  Herbert,  William 
Hathaway,  and  William  Hughes.  Mary  Fitton,  one  of  the 
actor's  supposed  mistresses,  has  also  played  an  unsavory  role 
in  the  discussion. 

The  writer,  therefore,  has  not  the  temerity,  if  he  has 
the  disposition,  to  advance  any  startling  theory  respecting 
these  poetic  gems,  but  we  now  have  Bacon's  life  before  us 
more  fully  than  ever  before,  and  we  will  venture  to  ask  the 
reader,  after  a  careful  perusal  of  the  Sonnets,  —  and  they 
are  amply  worthy  of  very  many  readings,  —  to  reread  them 
in  the  light  of  Bacon's  life,  with  this  one  suggestion,  that  it  is 
quite  natural  for  one  whose  mind  is  self-centered  and  intro- 
spective, to  address  himself  in  the  third  person:  "Why  art 
thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul.'^"  asks  the  psahnist;  "And  why 
art  thou  disquieted  in  me?"  That  they  reflect  the  changing 
moods  of  the  author  and  reflect  his  experiences  is  evident  and 
admitted  by  all. 

That  Bacon's  experiences  were  peculiar  is  equally  evident. 
Brought  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  godless  court,  surpassing 
his  contemporaries  in  learning,  in  brilliancy  of  mind,  and  in 

378 


THE  SONNETS 

keenness  of  wit ;  with  small  means,  but,  for  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  his  life,  in  expectancy  of  high  official  honors ;  constantly 
disappointed,  owing  to  the  Queen's  distrust  of  him  fostered 
by  enemies  enjoying  official  power,  yet  inspired  by  the  highest 
ideals,  and  secretly  devoting  his  life  to  the  mental  enfranchise- 
ment of  his  fellow  men  in  an  age  when  a  knowledge  of  his 
work  would  have  brought  him  to  the  block,  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  the  work  of  such  a  man  not  to  be  colored  by  his 
life.  Realizing  this  himself  he  expresses  fear  of  discovery 
thus:  — 

LXXVI 

Why  write  I  still  all  one,  ever  the  same, 

And  keep  invention  in  a  noted  weed, 

That  every  word  doth  almost  tell  my  name, 

Showing  their  birth  and  where  they  did  proceed? 

Let  us  for  a  moment  consider,  if  a  poet  were  to  write  certain 
sonnet  sequences  embodying  the  experiences  of  his  life, — 
and  in  the  Sonnets  we  are  reviewing  all  critics  have  recognized 
that  their  author  was  doing  this,  —  how  he  would  naturally 
proceed.  Without  doubt  he  would  begin  with  springtime  and 
youth,  when  both  are  brimming  with  life  and  the  youthful 
heart  is  dominated  by  the  Muse  of  Poetry.  To  her  it  joyously 
and  wholly  devotes  its  love,  and  pours  out  all  the  passion 
which  inspires  its  song:  — 

I 

Thou  that  art  now  the  world's  fresh  ornament 
And  only  herald  to  the  gaudy  spring, 
Within  thine  own  bud  buriest  thy  content 
And,  tender  churl,  mak'st  waste  in  niggarding. 

The  singer's  thought  now  becomes  more  self-centered,  for 
he  makes  little  distinction  between  his  music  and  himself,  and 
with  the  happy  insouciance  of  the  dreamer  vibrates  between 
them.  To  follow  him  in  his  varying  moods  this  clue  must 
not  be  dropped.    The  "gaudy  spring"  inevitably  suggests  the 

379 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

somber  winter  of  Age,  as  imagination  turned  selfward  mirrors 
his  own  lineaments :  — 

II 

When  forty  winters  shall  besiege  thy  brow 
And  dig  deep  trenches  in  thy  beauty's  field, 
Thy  youth's  proud  livery,  so  gazed  on  now. 
Will  be  a  tatter'd  weed,  of  small  worth  held: 

It  follows,  in  harmony  with  the  creative  impulses  of  nature, 
that  he  must  preserve  in  another  the  beauty  of  his  youth:  — 

III 

Look  in  thy  glass,  and  tell  the  face  thou  viewest 
Now  is  the  time  that  face  should  form  another; 
Whose  fresh  repair  if  now  thou  not  renewest, 
Thou  dost  beguile  the  world,  unbless  some  mother. 

VI 

Then  let  not  winter's  ragged  hand  deface 

In  thee  thy  summer,  ere  thou  be  distiU'd: 

Make  sweet  some  vial;  treasure  thou  some  place 

With  beauty's  treasure,  ere  it  be  self-klU'd. 

That  use  is  not  forbidden  usury. 

Which  happies  those  that  pay  the  willing  loan; 

That's  for  thyself  to  breed  another  thee, 

Or  ten  times  happier,  be  it  ten  for  one; 

Ten  times  thyself  were  happier  than  thou  art. 

If  ten  of  thine  ten  times  refigured  thee: 

Then  what  could  death  do,  if  thou  shouldst  depart, 

Leaving  thee  living  in  posterity? 

Be  not  self-wIU'd,  for  thou  art  much  too  fair 

To  be  death's  conquest  and  make  worms  thine  heir. 

VII 

Lo,  in  the  orient  when  the  gracious  light 
Lifts  up  his  burning  head,  each  under  eye 
Doth  homage  to  his  new-appearing  sight, 
Serving  with  looks  his  sacred  majesty: 
And  having  climb'd  the  steep-up  heavenly  hill, 
Resembling  strong  youth  in  his  middle  age, 
Yet  mortal  looks  adore  his  beauty  still, 
Attending  on  his  golden  pilgrimage; 

380 


THE  SONNETS 

But  when  from  highmost  pitch,  with  weary  car, 

Like  feeble  age,  he  reeleth  from  the  day. 

The  eyes,  'fore  duteous,  now  converted  are 

From  his  low  tract,  and  look  another  way: 
So  thou,  thyself  out-going  in  thy  noon, 
Unlook'd  on  diest,  unless  thou  get  a  son. 

What  does  the  future  forecast  for  him?  He  has  had  his 
human  love  to  whom  as  Rosalind  he  once  sang,  the  embodi- 
ment of  all  the  graces  of  his  muse.  In  all  his  songs  they  and 
his  own  soul  are  triune.  To  him  these  are  not  divided  by  lines 
of  time  and  space. 

XVII 

Who  will  believe  my  verse  in  time  to  come, 
If  it  were  fill'd  with  your  most  high  deserts? 
Though  yet,  heaven  knows,  it  is  but  as  a  tomb 
Which  hides  your  life  and  shows  not  half  your  parts. 
If  I  could  write  the  beauty  of  your  eyes 
And  in  fresh  numbers  number  all  your  graces. 
The  age  to  come  would  say  **This  poet  lies; 
Such  heavenly  touches  ne'er  touch'd  earthly  faces." 
So  should  my  papers,  yellowed  with  their  age. 
Be  scorn'd,  like  old  men  of  less  truth  than  tongue, 
And  your  true  rights  be  term'd  a  poet's  rage 
And  stretched  metre  of  an  antique  song: 

But  were  some  child  of  yours  alive  that  time. 
You  should  live  twice,  in  it  and  in  my  rhyme. 

Having  reflected  upon  the  vicissitudes  of  life,  he  turns  his 
glance  to  the  more  material  conditions  by  which  his  life  is 
hampered  which  estrange  him  from  his  poetic  muse  compel- 
ling him  to  toil  "still  farther  off  from  thee." 

Dr.  Rawley,  Bacon's  chaplain,  who  was  his  most  intimate 
companion,  wondered  greatly  at  the  extent  of  his  knowledge, 
ascribing  it  not  so  much  to  books,  though  he  was  a  great  reader, 
as  to  some  faculty  akin  to  inspiration.  The  night-time  is  most 
favorable  to  clear  thinking,  and  happy  indeed  is  the  man  who 
can  retain  a  clear  recollection  of  his  night  thoughts.  Bacon 
could  do  this  and  we  are  told  by  Boener  that  he 

381 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Seldom  saw  him  take  up  a  book.  He  only  ordered  his  chaplain 
and  me  to  look  in  such  and  such  an  author  for  a  certain  place, 
and  then  dictated  to  us  early  in  the  morning  what  he  had  com- 
posed during  the  night. 

Lady  Anne,  knowing  his  devotion  to  study,  in  her  solicitude 
for  his  health  which  had  become  impaired,  in  a  letter  to  An- 
thony, wrote :  — 

Verily  I  think  that  your  brother's  weak  stomach  to  digest  hath 
been  much  caused  and  confirmed  by  untimely  going  to  bed,  and 
then  musing,  I  know  not  what,  when  he  should  sleep. 

This  habit  is  here  disclosed: — 

XXVIII 

How  can  I  then  return  in  happy  plight, 

That  am  debarred  the  benefit  of  rest? 

When  day's  oppression  is  not  eased  by  night, 

But  day  by  night,  and  night  by  day,  oppress'd? 

And  each,  though  enemies  to  cither's  reign. 

Do  In  consent  shake  hands  to  torture  me; 

The  one  by  toil,  the  other  to  complain 

How  far  I  toil,  still  farther  off  from  thee. 

I  tell  the  day,  to  please  him  thou  art  bright. 

And  dost  him  grace  when  clouds  do  blot  the  heaven: 

So  flatter  I  the  swart-complexlon'd  night; 

When  sparkling  stars  twire  not  thou  glld'st  the  even. 
But  day  doth  daily  draw  my  sorrows  longer. 
And  night  doth  nightly  make  grief's  strength  seem  stronger. 

But  he  thinks  of  the  muse  to  whom  he  is  devoted,  and 

though  disappointed,  cramped,  and  hindered  in  his  aspirations, 

he  exclaims:  "Haply  I  think  on  thee,"  and  becomes  greater 

than  a  king:  — 

XXIX 

When,  in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes, 
I  all  alone  beweep  my  outcast  state, 
And  trouble  deaf  heaven  with  my  bootless  cries. 
And  look  upon  myself,  and  curse  my  fate. 
Wishing  me  like  to  one  more  rich  In  hope. 
Featured  like  him,  like  him  with  friends  possessed, 
Desiring  this  man's  art  and  that  man's  scope. 
With  what  I  most  enjoy  contented  least; 

382 


THE  SONNETS 

Yet  in  these  thoughts  myself  almost  despising, 

Haply  I  think  on  thee,  and  then  my  state, 

Like  to  the  lark  at  break  of  day  arising 

From  sullen  earth,  sings  hymns  at  heaven's  gate; 

For  thy  sweet  love  remember'd  such  wealth  brings 
That  then  I  scorn  to  change  my  state  with  kings. 

His  muse  will,  of  course,  have  other  lovers,  and  his  "poor 
rude  lines"  will  be  "Exceeded  by  the  height  of  happier  men," 
and  he  asks,  — 

XXXII 

If  thou  survive  my  well  contented  day. 

When  that  churl  death  my  bones  with  dust  shall  cover 

And  shalt  by  fortune  once  more  re-survey: 

These  poor  rude  lines  of  thy  deceased  Lover: 

Compare  them  with  the  bettering  of  the  time, 

And  though  they  be  out-stript  by  every  pen. 

Reserve  them  for  my  love,  not  for  their  rhyme. 

Exceeded  by  the  height  of  happier  men. 

Oh  then  vouchsafe  me  but  this  loving  thought, 

Had  my  friends  Muse  grown  with  this  growing  age, 

A  dearer  birth  than  this  his  love  had  brought 

To  march  in  ranks  of  better  equipage: 

But  since  he  died  and  Poets  better  prove. 
Theirs  for  their  style  I  '11  read,  his  for  his  love. 

He  must  be  separated  from  the  embodiment  of  his  genius : — 

XXXVI 

Let  me  confess  that  we  two  must  be  twain. 

Although  our  undivided  loves  are  one: 

So  shall  those  blots  that  do  with  me  remain. 

Without  thy  help,  by  me  be  borne  alone. 

In  our  two  loves  there  is  but  one  respect. 

Though  in  our  lives  a  separable  spite, 

Which  though  it  alter  not  love's  sole  effect. 

Yet  doth  it  steal  sweet  hours  from  love's  delight. 

I  may  not  evermore  acknowledge  thee. 

Lest  my  bewailed  guilt  should  do  thee  shame, 

Nor  thou  with  public  kindness  honour  me, 

Unless  thou  take  that  honour  from  thy  name: 
But  do  not  so;  I  love  thee  in  such  sort. 
As  thou  being  mine,  mine  is  thy  good  report. 

383 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

But  he  asks :  — 

XXXVIII 

How  can  my  Muse  want  subject  to  invent, 

While  thou  dost  breathe,  that  pour'st  into  my  verse 

Thine  own  sweet  argument,  too  excellent 

For  every  vulgar  paper  to  rehearse? 

O,  give  thyself  the  thanks,  if  aught  in  me 

Worthy  perusal  stand  against  thy  sight; 

For  who's  so  dumb  that  cannot  write  to  thee, 

When  thou  thyself  dost  give  invention  light? 

Be  thou  the  tenth  Muse,  ten  times  more  in  worth 

Than  those  old  nine  which  rhymers  invocate; 

And  he  that  calls  on  thee,  let  him  bring  forth 

Eternal  numbers  to  outlive  long  date. 

If  my  slight  Muse  do  please  these  curious  days, 
The  pain  be  mine,  but  thine  shall  be  the  praise. 

Yet  he  seems  to  set  the  greatest  store  by  his  work:  — 

XXXIX 

O,  how  thy  worth  with  manners  may  I  sing, 
When  thou  art  all  the  better  part  of  me? 
What  can  mine  own  praise  to  mine  own  self  bring? 
And  what  is't  but  mine  own  when  I  praise  thee? 

It  has  been  a  subject  of  wonder  with  his  biographers  why 
the  Stratford  actor  took  no  interest  in  the  works  ascribed  to 
him,  and  the  reply  seems  evident;  namely,  that  he  was  not 
their  author.  The  following,  however,  shows  that  the  author 
of  the  Sonnets  fully  appreciated  the  value  of  his  literary  work 
which  his  keen  critical  sense  told  him  excelled  that  of  his  con- 
temporaries :  — 

•      LV 

Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 

Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme? 

But  you  shall  shine  more  bright  in  these  contents 

Than  unswept  stone,  besmear'd  with  sluttish  time. 

When  wasteful  war  shall  statues  overturn. 

And  broils  root  out  the  work  of  masonry. 

Nor  Mars  his  sword  nor  war's  quick  fire  shall  burn 

The  living  record  of  your  memory. 

384 


THE  SONNETS 

'Gainst  death  and  all-oblivious  enmity 
Shall  you  pace  forth;  your  praise  shall  still  find  room 
Even  in  the  eyes  of  all  posterity 
That  wear  this  world  out  to  the  ending  doom. 
So,  till  the  judgment  that  yourself  arise, 
You  live  in  this,  and  dwell  in  lovers'  eyes. 

We  come  now  to  perhaps  the  most  striking  self-revelation 
we  have  thus  far  met.  The  alluring  but  illusive  sin  of  self- 
love  flits  across  the  path  of  his  thought,  and  he  recognizes 
himself  in  the  specter.  Hitherto  his  confidence  in  the  crea- 
tions of  his  brain  has  charmed  him  into  the  belief  that  he  was 
gifted  with  genius  above  his  fellows,  but  now  his  real  self  is 
revealed  to  him  —  his  age  and  condition  —  an  inevitable  ex- 
perience of  an  introspective  soul  at  some  point  in  life. 

LXII 

Sin  of  self-love  possesses  all  mine  eye, 

And  all  my  soul,  and  all  my  every  part; 

And  for  this  sin  there  Is  no  remedy, 

It  is  so  grounded  inward,  in  my  heart. 

Methinks  no  face  so  gracious  is  as  mine. 

No  shape  so  true,  no  truth  of  such  account; 

And  for  myself  mine  owne  worth  to  define, 

As  I  all  other  In  all  worths  surmount. 

But  when  my  glass  shows  me  myself  Indeed, 

Beated  and  chopp'd  with  tann'd  antiquity 

Mine  own  self-loving  quite  contrary  I  read; 

Self  so  self-loving  were  iniquity. 

'Tis  thee,  myself,  that  for  myself  I  praise, 
Painting  my  age  with  beauty  of  thy  days. 

Is  It  possible  that  the  Stratford  actor,  then  especially  ab- 
sorbed in  petty  trade  and  overreaching  his  neighbors,  could 
have  indulged  such  reflections  as  these?  The  author  of  the 
"Arte  of  English  Poesie'"  might  have  scanned  these  lines 
without  sulking. 

The  fame  of  his  work,  however,  must  be  enjoyed  by 
another  whose  epitaph  even  he  must  make  if  he  survives 
him:  — 

38s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

LXXXI 

Or  I  shall  live  your  epitaph  to  make, 

Or  you  survive  when  I  in  earth  am  rotten; 

From  hence  your  memory  death  cannot  take, 

Although  in  me  each  part  will  be  forgotten. 

Your  name  from  hence  immortal  life  shall  have. 

Though  I,  once  gone,  to  all  the  world  must  die: 

The  earth  can  yield  me  but  a  common  grave, 

When  you  entombed  in  men's  eyes  shall  lie. 

Your  monument  shall  be  my  gentle  verse, 

Which  eyes  not  yet  created  shall  o'er-read; 

And  tongues  to  be  your  being  shall  rehearse. 

When  all  the  breathers  of  this  world  are  dead; 

You  still  shall  live  —  such  virtue  hath  my  pen  — 
Where  breath  most  breathes,  even  in  the  mouths  of  men. 

An  unprejudiced  mind,  acquainted  with  the  character  and 
life  of  the  Stratford  actor,  and  the  social  prejudices  of  his  day 
which  consigned  a  strolling  player  to  the  limbo  of  contempt, 
refusing  him  the  right  to  practice  his  calling  unless  under  the 
responsible  protection  of  some  one  in  power,  must  admit  that 
what  has  been  quoted  cannot  possibly  reflect  his  experiences. 
We  give  but  a  few  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  of  these 
Sonnets  which  require  a  volume  to  do  them  justice.  That  there 
are  obscurities  in  them  is  evident  from  the  perplexing  theo- 
ries which  have  been  formed  respecting  them.  Some,  indeed, 
probably  refer  to  different  subjects.  Space,  however,  will  not 
permit  us  to  discuss  this  question  at  present.  Whether  the 
glosses  we  have  attached  to  those  we  have  quoted  are  more 
reasonable  than  those  heretofore  given,  the  reader  must  judge. 

That  Bacon  was  known  as  a  poet  by  his  contemporaries 
is  proved  by  abundant  evidence.  Perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant proof  of  the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  is  exhibited 
in  the  "Great  Assizes  holden  in  Parnassus."  The  two  parts 
of  the  Pilgrimage  to,  and  the  Return  from,  Parnassus  were 
produced  respectively  in  1597,  1598,  and  1601.  "The  Great 
Assizes"  was  printed  in  1645.  Raphael  had  depicted  in  the 
Vatican  the  triumph  of  antique  art  under  the  poetic  influ- 

386 


THE  "^l 

GREAT  assises! 

Boldcn  in  PARN AS SVS       J 

BY  I 

AP 

AND 

HIS  ASSESSOVRS: 


LL  O 


At  which  Seffions  are  Arraigned 


&  Mercurius  Aulkus. 
'0  Merciiru^s  Civicus. 


^1^  The  writer  of  Vhrmlls, 
^^  The  Intelliorencer. 


The  t^riter  of  Occurrences. 

The  miter  ofPajfages. 

The  Pojl. 

The  Spy e. 

The  writer  of  weekly  Accotmts. 

The  Sconip  Dove^c^c. 


c>Tra^c^j<??» 


^ 

^  LONDON, 

^  PnnXQdby  Rich/irdCotes^  for  Edward IhiihATids find zt^ to 

^         be  fold  at  his  Shop  in  the  Middle  Temple^  ?  6  4  J  • 


^"^f^^'^^W^^W^^WWWfWW 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

ence  of  the  Renaissance,  and  the  author  or  authors  of  the 
Pilgrimage  and  Return  framed  the  trilogy  to  be  enacted  at  St. 
John's  College,  to  depict  the  antithesis  of  the  modern  art  of 
learning  under  the  demoralizing  influence  of  the  age.  We 
have  already  alluded  to  the  Pilgrimage  to  and  Return  from 
Parnassus.  The  culmination  is  found  in  the  Great  Assizes  con- 
vened at  Parnassus  for  the  trial  of  the  trashy  and  misleading 
Literature  of  the  period.  To  the  lofty  mount  of  Learning, 
crowned  with  its  temple,  the  university,  prefigured  in  their 
dreams  as  Parnassus,  the  glorious  abode  of  Apollo  and  the 
Muses,  the  lovers  of  Learning  journey;  but  find,  after  experi- 
ence, how  vain  have  been  their  dreams,  and  return  to  the 
world  disillusioned.  In  time  the  fact  beams  luridly  upon  their 
vision  that  the  golden  age  of  literature  has  past,  and  is  being 
supplanted  by  an  age  of  trashy  pamphleteers  and  news-scrib- 
blers. The  lovers  of  true  literature  thereupon  appeal  to 
Apollo,  who  convenes  a  high  court  to  meet  at  Parnassus.  The 
great  authors,  principally  of  the  past,  are  summoned  as  asses- 
sors by  Apollo;  a  jury  is  impanelled,  and  the  principal  male- 
factors, the  newspapers  of  the  day,  are  first  placed  on  trial. 
The  title-page  here  shown  gives  their  names.  ^ 

1  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  d.  1586. 

William  Budeus,  French  scholar,  friend  of  Erasmus,  d.  1540. 

John  Picus,  Earl  of  Mirandola,  an  Italian  philosopher  and  scholar  of  the  Re- 
naissance, d.  1494. 

Julius  Caesar  Scaliger,  Italian  philosopher  and  author,  d.  1558. 

Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  famous  classical  scholar,  d.  1536. 

Justus  Lipsius,  philologist  and  critic,  d.  1606. 

John  Barclay,  author  of  the  Argents,  d.  1621. 

John  Bodine,  French  publicist,  d.  1596. 

Isaac  Casaubon,  Swiss  classical  scholar  and  theologian,  d.  1614. 

John  Selden,  author  and  friend  of  Bacon,  d.  1654. 

Hugo  Grotius,  Dutch  jurist  and  statesman,  d.  1645. 

Daniel  Heinsius,  Dutch  scholar  and  author,  d.  1655. 

Conradus  or  Gerardus  Vossius,  German  classical  scholar  and  author,  d.  1649. 

Augustine  Mascardus,  d.  1640. 

Joseph  Scaliger,  French  scholar,  d.  1609. 

Ben  Jonson,  d.  1637. 

John  Taylor,  Water  Poet,  d.  1654. 

Edmund  Spenser,  d.  1598. 

388 


lAPOLLO. 


The  Lord  V  E  R  V  L  A  Nj 

Cha:'?ccllor  cf  Pan^afff^s. 
Sir  P  HI  L  i^  Sidney, 

f^ig^^  Confidlc  of  Par, 
William    Bvdevs, 

High  Treafmer. 
John  Picvs,  Earle 

^/Mitandula,    High 

Cbamherlaine, 

JVLIVS       CCSAH 
SCALIGSR 


Erasmus    RoterOdam. 
Justus   Lipsius 
John   Barcklay 
John    Bodikb 
Adrian  Tvrnebvs 
Isaac    Casaybon 
John    Selden 
Hygo   GrotIvs 
Daniel  Heinsivs 
conradvs  vossivs 
Augustine  Ma scarduS 


^he  Jttroms. 

George  Wither 
Thomas  Cary 
ThQ'rnas  May 
IVilliam  Vavenant 
^o(t{ah  Sylvefler 
CeorgesSandes 
OHichael  Drayton 
Francis  Beaumont 
^ohn  Fletcher 
Thomas  Bajrvood 
William  Shakeffecre 
Vhilif  Mn[singer. 


The  MakfaSiours. 

Mercnrim  Britamctis 

Mercurias  Aulictis 

Ucrcnritis  Civicus 

The  Stout 

The  writer  of  Dittrnah 

The  TnteUigencer 

The  writer  cf  Occurrences 

The  writer  ofPaJTages 

The  Po lie 

The  Spy  e 

Thsmiter  of  mehly  Accottnts 

TheScottiJh  Dove^cfc, 

A  2 


Joseph  Scaliger, 
she  Cenfour  of  man- 
ners in  Parmlffss. 

Ben,  Johnson,  Kee- 
per of  the  Trophonian 

Denne. 

John  Taylovr,  C:y- 
tt  of  the  Comt. 


Jfo- 


Edmvnd  Spe  NCJR, 

Clerk  of  the  Aflifes. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

At  the  head  is  Apollo  and  next  to  him  is  Verulam,  or  Bacon, 
his  chancellor.  From  this  single  circumstance  it  is  evident 
that  the  God  of  Music  and  Poetry  regarded  Bacon  as  worthi- 
est among  mortals  of  the  chief  seat  in  Parnassus. 

The  Assize  is  opened  with  the  statement,  that  the 

Learned  Scaliger,  the  second  of  the  twaine 
Second  to  none  in  Arts  did  late  complaine 
To  wise  Apolo,  of  some  strange  abuses, 
Committed  against  him  and  the  Nine  Muses. 
Your  Grace  well  knowes  (I  need  not  to  relate) 
How  Typographie  doth  concern  your  state, 
Which  some  pernicious  heads  have  so  abus'd. 
That  many  wish  it  never  had  been  us'd: 
This  instrument  of  Art,  is  now  possest 
By  some,  who  have  in  Art  no  interest: 
For  it  is  now  imploy'd  by  Paper-wasters, 
By  mercenary  soules  and  Poetasters, 
Who  weekly  utter,  slanders,  libells,  lies, 
Under  the  name  of  spacious  novelties. 

This  is  not  a  bad  description  of  the  periodical  press  of  to- 
day, though  the  newspaper  when  this  was  written  had  been 
but  a  few  years  in  vogue. 

(The  Court  thus  set)  the  sturdy  Keeper  then. 

Of  the  inhospitall  Trophonian  Den 

His  trembling  Pris'ners  brought  unto  the  barre 

For  Sterne  aspect,  with  Mars  hee  might  compare 

But  by  his  belly,  and  his  double  chinne, 

Hee  look'd  like  the  old  Hoste  of  a  New  Inne. 

Thus  when  sone  Ben  his  fetter'd  cattell  had 

Shut  up  together  in  the  pinfold  sad; 

John  Taylour,  then  the  Court's  shrill  Chantecleere 

Did  summon  all  the  Jurours  to  appeare: 

He  had  the  Cryers  place;  an  office  fit. 

For  him  that  had  a  better  voyce  than  wit. 

The  obnoxious  newspapers,  Mercurius  Britannicus,  Aulicus, 
Civicus,  Poste,  Spye,  Scottish  Dove,  and  several  offending 
scribblers,  after  a  hearing  received  various  sentences;  the 
Scottish  Dove  being  a  foreign  sheet,  the  lightest,  which  was 
that 

390 


THE  SONNETS 

Hee  to  his  native  countrey  must  repaire, 

And  was  on  paine  of  death  prohibited 

To  crosse  the  Seas,  or  to  repasse  the  Tweede. 

As  the  "Great  Assizes"  has  been  misunderstood  hitherto, 
and  the  present  writer  has  made  a  study  of  the  first  fifty  years 
of  English  newspapers  in  the  British  Museum  for  historical 
purposes,  he  thinks  it  well  to  make  the  foregoing  extracts  to 
disclose  its  scope  and  wit,  though  his  sole  purpose  in  speaking 
of  it  is  to  show  how  highly  the  poetical  genius  of  Bacon  was 
regarded  by  his  contemporaries. 


X 

THE  ROSE   CROSS 

Much  has  been  said  of  Bacon's  connection  with  that  influ- 
ential Society  which  flourished  in  England  in  the  reigns  of 
Elizabeth  and  James,  known  as  "Rosicrucian,"  whose  very 
existence  was  so  carefully  concealed  that  few  outside  of  its 
fellowship  knew  of  its  existence.  At  what  date  in  the  world's 
history  it  originated  we  will  hardly  venture  to  inquire;  it  is 
sufficient  to  our  purpose  that  the  public  announcement  of  its 
existence  occurred  in  1614,  when  was  published  in  Cassel  the 
"Allgemeine  und  General-Reformation  der  ganzen  weiten 
Welt."  This  work  declares  that  it  was  first  formed 

By  four  persons  only,  and  by  them  was  made  the  magical  lan- 
guage and  writing,  with  a  large  dictionary,  which  we  yet  daily 
use  to  God's  praise  and  glory. 

Says  Mackey :  — 

Many  writers  have  sought  to  discover  a  close  connection  be- 
tween the  Rosicrucians  and  the  Freemasons,  and  some,  indeed, 
have  advanced  the  theory  that  the  latter  are  only  the  successors 
of  the  former.  Whether  this  opinion  be  correct  or  not,  there  are 
sufficient  coincidences  of  character  between  the  two  to  render 
the  history  of  Rosicrucianism  highly  interesting  to  the  Masonic 
student.^ 

In  England,  there  still  exists  a  society  of  Rosicrucians  which 
was  "founded  upon  the  remains  of  the  old  German  associa- 
tion." We  are  told  that 

Modern  times  have  eagerly  accepted,  in  the  full  light  of  science, 
the  precious  inheritance  of  knowledge  bequeathed  by  the  Rosi- 
crucians. ...  It  is  not  desirable,  in  a  work  of  this  kind,  to  make 

*  Albert  G.  Mackey,  An  Encyclopedia  of  Freemasonry,  vol.  ii,  p.  639.  New- 
York,  1912. 

392 


THE  ROSE  CROSS 

disclosures  of  an  Indiscreet  nature.  The  Brethren  of  the  Rosy 
Cross  will  never  and  should  not,  at  peril  and  under  alarm,  give 
up  their  secrets.  This  ancient  body  has  apparently  disappeared 
from  the  field  of  human  activity^  hut  its  labors  are  being  carried  on 
with  alacrity^  and  with  a  sure  delight  in  an  ultimate  success.^ 

Among  the  members  of  the  ancient  Society  appear  these 
initials,  "Era.  F.  B.,  M.  P.  A.,"  which,  plainly  stated,  stand 
for  Francis  Bacon,  Magister,  Pictor,  Architectus.  Waite,  per- 
haps the  best  historian  of  the  Rosicrucian  Order,  introduces 
it  to  us  in  these  words :  — 

Beneath  the  broad  tide  of  human  history  there  flow  the  stealthy 
undercurrents  of  the  secret  societies  which  frequently  determine 
in  the  depths  the  changes  that  take  place  upon  the  surface.  The 
facts  and  documents  concerning  the  Fraternity  of  the  Rose  Cross 
are  absolutely  unknown  to  English  readers.  Even  well-informed 
people  will  learn  with  astonishment  the  extent  and  variety  of 
the  Rosicrucian  literature,  which  hitherto  has  lain  buried  in  rare 
pamphlets,  written  in  the  old  German  tongue,  and  in  the  Latin 
commentaries  of  the  later  alchemists. 

Says  Heckthorne :  — 

A  halo  of  poetic  splendour  surrounds  the  Order  of  the  Rosi- 
crucians;  the  magic  lights  of  fancy  play  round  their  graceful  day 
dreams,  while  the  mystery  in  which  they  shrouded  themselves 
lends  additional  attraction  to  their  history.  But  their  brilliancy 
was  that  of  a  meteor.  The  literature  of  every  European  country 
contains  hundreds  of  pleasing  fictions,  whose  machinery  has 
been  borrowed  from  their  system  of  philosophy,  though  that 
itself  has  passed  away.^ 

The  writer  has  long  been  a  member  of  the  Masonic  order  of 
the  Red  Cross,  which  is  popularly  supposed  to  have  inherited 
its  title  from  the  Rosicrucian  Brotherhood,  a  supposition  which, 
having  a  knowledge  of  the  history  of  this  and  other  societies 
akin  to  Masonry,  he  believes  to  be  of  doubtful  validity. 

The  title  of  the  Brotherhood  is  derived  from  Rosa-Crux,  a 

^  Royal  Masonic  CyclopcBdia.    London,  1877. 

2  C.  W.  Heckthorne,  Secret  Societies  in  All  Ages  and  Countries.  London,  1897. 

393 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

red  rose  affixed  to  a  cross,  presumably  of  gold.  So  many  intel- 
lectual subtleties  have  been  employed  by  fanciful  theorists  in 
attempts  to  explain  the  precise  signification  of  these  ancient 
symbols,  believed  to  be  older  than  the  Christian  era,  that 
their  more  obvious  and  truer  significance  has  been  unneces- 
sarily obscured.  To  the  Rosicrucians  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth, 
it  hardly  seems  questionable  that  the  rose  was  the  symbol  of 
silence,  as  among  the  ancients  it  was  originally  derived  from 
the  pagan  tradition  that  the  God  of  Love  made  the  first  rose, 
which  he  presented  to  the  God  of  Silence.  From  this  tradi- 
tion originated  the  custom  of  carving  a  rose  on  the  ceilings 
of  banquet  halls,  or  rooms  where  people  met  for  gayety  and 
diversion,  to  intimate  that  under  it  whatever  was  spoken  or 
done  was  not  to  be  divulged;  hence  our  term  suh  rosa  used 
to  indicate  secrecy.  The  Cross,  of  course,  signified  salvation, 
to  which  the  Society  of  the  Rose-Cross  devoted  itself  by  teach- 
ing mankind  the  love  of  God  and  the  beauty  of  brotherhood, 
with  all  that  they  implied. 

The  following  has  been  recognized  as  having  been  written 
by  Bacon,  and  will  not  be  doubted  by  any  acquainted  inti- 
mately with  his  style :  — 

/  was  twenty  when  this  hook  was  finished ;  but  methinks  I  have 
outlived  myself;  I  begin  to  be  weary  of  the  sun.  I  have  shaken 
hands  with  delight,  and  know  all  is  vanity,  and  I  think  no  man 
ca;i  live  well  once  but  he  that  could  live  twice.  For  my  part  I 
would  not  live  over  my  hours  past,  or  begin  again  the  minutes  of 
my  days;  not  because  I  have  not  lived  well,  but  for  fear  that  I 
should  live  them  worse.  At  my  death  I  mean  to  make  a  total 
adieu  of  the  world,  not  caring  for  the  burthen  of  a  tombstone  and 
epitaph,  but  in  the  universal  Register  of  God  I  fix  my  contempla- 
tions on  Heaven.  I  writ  the  Rosicrucian  Infallible  Axiomata  in 
four  books,  and  study,  not  for  my  own  sake  only,  but  for  theirs 
that  study  not  for  themselves.  In  the  law  I  began  to  be  a  perfect 
clerk ;  I  writ  the  Idea  of  the  Law,  etc.,  for  the  benefit  of  my  friends, 
and  practice  in  King's  Bench. ^  I  envy  no  man  that  knows  more 

^  The  reader  is  referred  to  Bacon's  Historia  Vita  et  Mortis ,  and  legal  writings, 
including  the  Attorney's  Academy, 

394 


THE  ROSE  CROSS 

than  myself,  but  pity  them  that  know  less  .  .  .  Now,  in  the 
midst  of  all  my  endeavours  there  is  but  one  thought  that  dejects 
me,  that  my  acquired  parts  must  perish  with  myself ^  nor  can  he 
legacied  amongst  my  dearly  beloved  and  honoured  friends. 

The  striking  phrase,  "I  begin  to  be  weary  of  the  sun,"  is 
duplicated  in  "Macbeth,"  v,  5 :  "I  'gin  to  be  a  weary  of  the 
sun." 

We  would  gladly  indulge  in  a  more  comprehensive  exposi- 
tion of  this  interesting  fraternity  were  it  not  necessary  to  limit 
ourselves  to  a  single  member  of  it,  Francis  Bacon,  its  putative 
head  in  England,  though  Robert  Fludd,  whom  Waite  de- 
scribes as  "  the  great  English  mystical  philosopher  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  a  man  of  immense  erudition,  of  exalted  mind, 
and,  to  judge  by  his  writings,  of  extreme  personal  sanctity,"  ^ 
was  its  chief  exponent.  Of  course  he  was  a  friend  of  Bacon,  if 
the  latter  belonged  to  the  English  fraternity,  and  so  must  have 
been  Maier,  the  chief  among  German  writers  of  the  order, 
who  was  also  in  England  the  year  of  the  actor's  death,  and 
Bringern,  another  associate  with  him  in  upholding  the  honor 
of  Rosicrucianism  on  the  Continent.  It  is  to  this  association 
that  we  desire  to  call  especial  attention. 

In  1617,  a  year  after  the  death  of  the  Stratford  actor,  Fludd 
was  in  Frankfort  engaged  in  seeing  his  "  Defence  of  Rosicru- 
cianism" through  the  press.  At  the  same  time  Bringern  was 
printing  the  "Fama  Fraternitatis."  In  this  work  appears,  on 
pages  52  and  53,  the  following:  — 

We  must  earnestly  admonish  you  that  you  cast  away,  if  not 
all,  yet  most  of  the  worthless  books  of  pseudo  chymists  ^  to  whom 
it  is  a  jest  to  apply  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  to  vain  things,  or  to 
deceive  men  with  monstrous  symbols  and  enigmas,  or  to  profit 
by  the  curiosity  of  the  credulous;  our  age  doth  produce  many 
such,  one  of  the  greatest  being  a  stage  player,  a  man  with  suffi- 
cient ingenuity  for  imposition;  such  doth  the  enemy  of  human 
welfare  mingle  among  the  good  seed,  thereby  to  make  the  truth 

^  A.  S.  Waite,  The  Real  History  of  the  Rosicrucians,  p.  283.    London,  1887. 
2  The  term  "chymist"  used  figuratively  signified  poets  or  romancists. 

395 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

more  difficult  to  be  believed,  which  in  herself  is  simple  and  naked, 
while  falsehood  is  proud,  haughty,  and  colored  with  a  lustre  of 
seemingly  godly  and  humane  wisdom.  Ye  that  are  wise  eschew 
such  books  and  have  recourse  to  us,  who  seek  not  your  moneys, 
but  offer  unto  you  our  great  treasures. 

The  allusion  is  evidently  to  the  Stratford  actor,  for  the 
plays,  as  well  as  Bacon's  other  works,  are  saturated  with 
Rosicrucian  thought.  Dr.  Ingleby  should  include  it  in  a  new 
edition  of  his  "Allusions."  Certainly  it  is  much  clearer  than 
many  he  has  published.  But  further  to  identify  the  actor 
with  the  titles  "false  poet"  and  "stage  player"  we  will  call 
attention  to  a  method  which  these  literary  bo-peeps  had  of 
revealing  their  meaning  to  the  initiated.  If  they  wished  to 
inform  their  reader  who  a  person  alluded  to  was,  they  placed 
the  allusion  on  a  page  the  number  of  which  corresponded  to 
the  number  by  which  he  was  known,  or  to  the  date  of  some 
well-known  event  connected  with  him.  This  allusion  was 
placed  on  pages  52  and  53 ;  the  first  to  indicate  the  age  of  the 
"false  poet  and  stage  player,"  which  was  52,  and  the  second 
to  show  the  relation  between  him  and  Bacon,  whose  number, 
as  we  shall  see  later,  was  53. 

It  may  be  asked,  why  did  a  member  of  the  Brotherhood 
and  friend  of  Bacon  speak  of  the  plays  in  this  manner  if  he 
knew  they  were  the  work  of  a  good  Rosicrucian?  It  should 
be  understood  that  in  the  Brotherhood  the  largest  liberty  of 
expression  was  allowed,  and  that  many,  especially  those  who 
were  of  Puritan  extraction,  looked  upon  the  stage  with  abhor- 
rence. Bringern  was  among  these,  and  took  this  way  of  ex- 
pressing his  disapproval  of  mingling  things  sacred  and  profane. 
He  was  occupied,  as  so  many  are  even  in  our  day,  with  meth- 
ods of  reform,  while  Bacon  was  looking  to  results. 

The  Rose-Cross  order  is  greatly  misunderstood.  Writers 
upon  the  subject  have  permitted  themselves  to  be  led  aside 
from  the  motive  which  vitalized  it,  and  have  been  hoodwinked 
by  its  mysteries,  as  though  it  exalted  mystery  above  faith, 

396 


THE  ROSE  CROSS 

the  shadow  above  the  substance,  paying  scant  heed  to  the 
patent  fact,  that  secrecy  was  its  only  safeguard  against  rack 
and  thumbscrew.  It  was  not  a  searcher  for  gold,  but  a  Chris- 
tian organization  composed  of  studious  and  thoughtful  men, 
impressed  by  the  mysteries  amidst  which  the  Creator  had 
placed  them,  and  which  Science  and  Philosophy  have  ever 
been  striving  to  solve.  They  were  mystical,  —  how  could 
they  be  otherwise  ?  —  and  were  regarded  as  heretics,  or  free- 
thinkers, then  synonymous  terms,  though  now  they  would  be 
called  conservative,  for  history  teaches  that  the  error  of  one 
age  may  be  the  truth  of  a  later  one. 

There  were  many  in  Elizabeth's  reign  who  chafed  at  the 
restrictions,  and  abhorred  the  obsequious  attitude  which 
place  and  power  imposed  upon  them;  but  though  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Learning  was  the  corner-stone  of  their  temple, 
they  naturally  differed  as  to  methods  of  advancement.  Some 
among  them,  like  Bacon,  found  in  Poetry  and  Romance  the 
most  convenient  vehicles  for  delivering  to  the  world,  either  by 
means  of  the  printed  page  or  the  living  drama,  the  truths  they 
so  ardently  desired  it  to  possess.  The  influence  of  these  upon 
the  literature  of  the  Elizabethan  age  is  evident,  and  if  it  is  true 
that  the  caged  bird  sings  sweeter  than  the  free,  the  saying 
may  furnish  a  reason  for  its  matchless  charm.  To  the  mind 
of  the  writer,  Swedenborg's  ethically  religious  system,  which 
makes  the  dual  precepts,  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  its 
essence,  quite  faithfully  expresses  that  of  the  Rosicrucians. 
To  love  God  and  man  sufficiently  to  serve  both  to  the  best  of 
their  ability  was  their  religion,  and  realizing  the  wickedness 
about  them,  they  undertook  a  crusade  of  education  to  lead 
men  to  a  recognition  of  their  duty  to  God  and  their  fellows,  the 
"Universal  Reformation  of  the  Whole  Wide  World."  These 
mysteries  were  simply  cloaks  to  protect  them  from  danger, 
not,  it  is  true,  of  modern  style,  though  fantastic  garb  is  still 
all  too  much  in  evidence  in  the  world ;  for  then.  Religion  and 
even  Science  sported  strange  attire,  and  they  naturally  reflect 

397 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  fashion  of  their  time.  It  was  an  age  of  isms  in  which  men 
flung  loose  the  jesses  of  Fancy,  and  soared  aimlessly  amid  the 
drifting  clouds  of  fiction,  or  were  ensnared  in  the  toils  of  super- 
stition ;  an  age  in  which  men  mad  with  the  lust  of  power  crushed 
with  mailed  heel  those  whose  helplessness  should  have  been 
their  protection.  But  in  no  age  has  God  been  without  faith- 
ful witnesses,  who,  braving  the  terrors  of  torture  and  death, 
were  ready  to  give  their  lives  to  the  emancipation  of  their 
fellow-men,  and  it  was  among  such  that  Rosicrucianism  found 
a  proper  field  for  its  activities. 

Unless  we  pay  less  attention  to  the  peculiarities  of  their 
outward  habiliments,  and  more  to  them  as  men,  living  the 
common  life,  and  sharing  the  common  aspirations  of  thinking 
and  well-meaning  mortals,  we  shall  fail  to  understand  them. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  Rosicrucian  Brotherhood 
especially  flourished  in  England  during  Bacon's  life,  and  that 
its  existence  was  not  made  known  to  the  world,  and  then  on 
the  Continent,  until  the  year  of  the  actor's  death.  We  have 
already  spoken  of  Maier,  the  Rosicrucian  Protagonist,  and  of 
his  sojourn  in  England.  Returning  to  Frankfort,  he  published 
in  September,  1616,  five  months  after  the  actor's  death,  three 
works,  one  being  his  "Lusus  Serius,"  which  he  dedicated  to 
a  triumvirate  of  Rosicrucians,  at  whose  head  appeared  Don 
Francisco  Antonio,  Londin,  Anglo,  Seniori.  This  combination 
of  the  names  of  Francis  and  Anthony,  the  latter  of  whom  had 
been  dead  fifteen  years,  was,  of  course,  understood  by  the 
Brotherhood,  among  whom  such  books  only  found  readers. 
To  have  dedicated  it  openly  to  Francis  Bacon  might  have  at- 
tracted unpleasant  attention,  if,  by  chance,  it  fell  under  the 
eye  of  any  but  a  friend,  though  at  this  time,  while  it  might  have 
been  injurious,  it  might  not  have  been  dangerous  if  it  had 
been  known  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Brotherhood.  It  is 
suggestive  to  note  that  in  his  book  Maier  gives  us  a  paraphrase 
of  the  story  of  Christopher  Sly  in  the  "Taming  of  the  Shrew," 
which  he  uses  to  point  a  moral.  Maier  concludes  the  story  by 

398 


THE  ROSE  CROSS 

restoring  the  poor  sot  to  his  former  condition,  while  in  the  play- 
he  is  left  unrestored. 

This  story  of  Sly,  Wigston  interprets  as  showing  the  rela- 
tion between  the  actor  and  Bacon,  the  former  representing 
"a  man  of  low  extraction,  set  up  like  a  nobleman  by  Bacon  in 
his  own  place  with  regard  to  plays  or  players."  ^ 

It  is  certainly  suggestive  that  Sly,  in  the  "Taming  of  the 
Shrew,"  remains  unrestored  to  his  former  condition,  as  if  to 
suggest  that  the  joke  of  the  actor's  false  role  on  the  stage  of 
literature  was  to  go  on  while  it  continued  to  amuse  the  world. 
The  story  of  Sly  is  in  the  Quarto  of  1594.  It  is  worth  notic- 
ing that  parts  of  the  play  are  duplicated  in  Tamburlaine  and 
Faustus,  whose  assumed  author  died  in  1593. 

When  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  Symbolism,  we  shall 
learn  more  of  the  secret  methods  employed  by  Rosicrucians 
for  conveying  information,  though  many  of  them  may  never 
be  fully  disclosed.  It  should  be  noted  that  the  stronghold  of 
the  Brotherhold  was  in  England,  and  that  its  period  of  great- 
est influence  was  during  Bacon's  life. 

Of  the  fact  that  Bacon  was  a  Rosicrucian,  Spedding,  in  his 
preface  to  "The  New  Atlantis,"  shows  himself  to  have  been 
entirely  oblivious.  Had  he  known  this,  John  Heydon's  "Voy- 
age to  the  Land  of  the  Rosicrucians"  would  have  opened  to 
him  a  line  of  thought  which  would  have  greatly  enlightened 
him,  for  Heydon's  "Voyage,"  largely  word  for  word  the  same, 
would  have  revealed  to  him  a  secret  which  would  have  en- 
abled him  to  understand  many  passages  in  his  author's  works 
over  which  he  puzzled  in  vain.  "The  New  Atlantis  "  was  pub- 
lished in  1627,  after  Bacon's  death,  by  Rawley,  his  executor, 
in  connection  with  the  "Sylva  Sylvarum,"  as  Bacon  "de- 
signed," says  Spedding,  and  "Solomon's  House,"  or  "The 
Temple  of  Wisdom"  —  as  Heydon  has  it — "is  nothing  more 

^  Maier's  paraphrase,  under  the  title  of  the  Waking  Man^s  Dream,  may  be 
found  in  the  Shakespeare  Library  of  Hazlitt.  Cf.  Francis  Bacon,  etc.,  versus 
Phantom  Captain  Shakespeare,  etc.,  p.  xxxii  et  seq.  London,  1891. 

399 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

than  a  vision  of  the  practical  results  which  he  anticipated 
from  the  study  of  natural  history  diligently  and  systematically 
carried  on  through  successive  generations,"  and  that  "of  it 
he  has  told  us  all  that  he  was  yet  qualified  to  tell."  ^ 

Talbot,  Heydon's  biographer,  gives  the  date  of  his  birth  as 
1630,  four  years  after  Bacon's  death.  He  represents  him  as  a 
great  traveler,  and  a  man  of  high  character.  How  came  he  to 
use  almost  the  same  description  of  his  penetration  into  the 
riddle  land  of  Rosicrucianism  that  Bacon  used  in  his  "  fable," 
which  Rawley  says  "he  devised  to  the  end  that  he  might 
exhibit  therein  a  model  or  description  of  a  college  instituted 
for  the  interpreting  of  nature,  and  the  production  of  great 
and  marvelous  works  for  the  benefit  of  men,  under  the 
name  of  Solomon's  House,  or  the  College  of  the  Six  Days' 
Works"?  A  fair  answer  seems  to  be  that  Bacon  used  a 
sketch  for  his  "Atlantis"  familiar  to  the  Hermetic  Brother- 
hood, which  was  limned  by  him  as  its  head,  to  exhibit  what 
might  be  accomplished  by  wise  means  for  the  regeneration 
of  society,  making  some  minor  changes  to  adapt  it  to  a  new 
purpose,  and  that  Heydon,  who  was  a  Rosicrucian,  unaware 
of  the  existence  of  Bacon's  "Atlantis,"  preserved  for  the 
world  the  original  or  an  accurate  copy  of  it.  It  is,  however, 
as  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Heydon  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  "Atlantis,"  in  his  admiration  of  a  work  in  which  he 
discerned  the  embodiment  of  the  Rosicrucian  spirit,  adopted 
it  as  an  exposition  of  the  beauty  and  strength  of  the  Holy 
House. 

In  commenting  upon  Bacon's  "Atlantis,"  Spedding  justly 
says :  — 

Perhaps  there  is  no  single  work  of  his  which  has  so  much  of  him- 
self in  it.  The  description  of  Solomon's  House  is  the  description 
of  the  vision  in  which  he  lived  —  the  vision  not  of  an  ideal  world 
released  from  the  natural  conditions  to  which  ours  is  subject, 
but  of  our  own  world  as  it  might  be  made  if  we  did  our  duty  by 

^  Spedding,  preface  to  The  New  Atlantis,  The  Works ,  etc.,  vol.  v,  p.  349. 

400 


THE  ROSE  CROSS 

it;  of  a  state  of  things  which  he  believed  would  one  day  be  actu- 
ally seen  upon  this  earth,  such  as  it  is,  by  men  such  as  we  are, 
and  the  coming  of  which  he  believed  that  his  own  labors  were 
sensibly  hastening.^ 

Before  dismissing  this  phase  of  our  subject,  let  us  compare 
extracts  from  the  "Atlantis"  and  Heydon's  "Voyage/' 

A  study  of  the  two  books  from  which  these  few  and  brief 
extracts  are  made,  in  connection  with  the  works  of  Waite,  Wig- 
ston,  and  Hargrave  Jennings  on  the  Rosicrucians,  opens  to 
us  a  realm  of  thought  to  which  so  many  of  us  in  our  less  tram- 
meled age  are  oblivious,  and  helps  in  blazing  a  way  to  a  con- 
ception of  what  has  seemed  to  us  a  fantastic  and  futile  method 
for  one  of  the  greatest  intellects  which  the  world  has  known, 
to  employ  in  playing  his  role  on  the  human  stage.  This  con- 
ception is  reached  when  we  clearly  understand  that  Rosicru- 
cianism  meant  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  universal  bro- 
therhood of  humanity ;  that  it  was  a  society  closely  allied  to 
Freemasonry;  derived  its  cult  through  the  same  channels  from 
the  same  event  —  the  building  of  Solomon's  House ;  employed 
the  same  symbols,  and  that  the  Invisibles,  as  the  Rosicrucians 
entitled  themselves,  worked  by  hidden  ways  to  bring  about 
their  proposed  reformation  of  society,  and  found  that  the  field 
of  literature  afforded  sure  and  safe  highways  to  human  minds 
—  the  highways  of  Philosophy,  Science,  and  History;  Poetry, 
Romance,  and  Drama;  reached  in  the  one  instance  by  different 
paths  of  abstract  thought,  experiment,  analysis,  and  compari- 
son ;  in  the  other  by  the  more  alluring  byways  of  imagination 
and  fancy.  Reaching  this  conception,  a  comprehension  of 
Bacon's  literary  methods,  and  even  of  the  cipher  mystery, 
becomes  less  difficult;  in  fact,  difficulties  quite  vanish  when 
one  reflects  that  the  reformer  of  our  day  works  in  the  same 
way,  and  uses  the  same  means  that  the  Invisibles  did,  but 
with  this  difference,  that  he  labors  in  the  sunshine  of  hope, 
while  they  wrought  in  the  shadow  of  fear. 

^  Spedding,  preface  to  The  New  Atlantis^  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  v,  p.  351. 

401 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

From  "  The  New  Atlantis'':  — 

The  Father  of  the  Family,  whom  they  call  the  Tirsan,  two  days 
before  the  feast,  taketh  to  him  three  of  such  friends  as  he  liketh 
to  choose;  and  is  assisted  also  by  the  governor  of  the  city  or  place 
where  the  feast  is  celebrated;  and  all  the  persons  of  the  family, 
of  both  sexes,  are  summoned  to  attend  him.  These  two  days  the 
Tirsan  sitteth  in  consultation  concerning  the  good  estate  of  the 
family.  Then,  if  there  be  any  discord  or  suits  between  any  of 
the  family,  they  are  compounded  and  appeased. 

From  Heydon's  "  Voyage  to  the  Land  of  the  Rosicrucians'':  — 
The  Father  of  the  fraternity,  whom  they  call  the  R.C.,  two 
days  before  the  feast  taketh  to  him  three  of  such  friends  as  he 
liketh  to  chuse,  and  is  assisted  also  by  the  governour  of  the  city 
where  the  feast  is  celebrated,  and  all  the  persons  of  the  family,  of 
both  sexes,  are  summoned  to  attend  upon  him.  Then,  if  there 
be  any  discords  or  suits,  they  are  compounded  and  appeased. 

From  "  The  New  Atlantis'':  — 
And  as  we  were  thus  in  conference,  there  came  one  that  seemed 
to  be  a  messenger,  in  a  rich  huke,  that  spake  with  the  Jew;  where- 
upon he  turned  to  me  and  said:  "You  will  pardon  me,  for  I  am 
commanded  away  in  haste."  The  next  morning  he  came  to  me 
again,  joyful  as  it  seemed,  and  said,  "There  is  word  come  to  the 
governor  of  the  city,  that  one  of  the  Fathers  of  Salomon's  House 
will  be  here  this  day  seven-night:  we  have  seen  none  of  them  this 
dozen  years.  His  coming  is  in  state;  but  the  cause  of  his  coming 
is  secret.  I  will  provide  you  and  your  fellows  of  a  good  standing 
to  see  his  entry."  I  thanked  him,  and  told  him,  I  was  most  glad 
of  the  news. 

From  Hey  don's  "  Voyage  to  the  Land  of  the  Rosicrucians" :  — 
As  we  were  thus  in  conference,  there  came  one  that  seemed  to 
be  a  messenger,  in  a  rich  huke,  that  spake  with  the  Jew,  where- 
upon he  turned  to  me  and  said,  "You  will  pardon  me,  for  I  am 
commanded  away  in  haste."  The  next  morning  he  came  to  me 
joyfulle,  and  said — "There  is  word  come  to  the  Governour  of  the 
city  that  one  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Temple  of  the  Rosie  Crosse, 
or  Holy  House,  will  be  here  this  day  seven-night.  We  have 
seen  none  of  them  this  dozen  years.  His  coming  is  in  state,  but 
the  cause  is  secret.  I  will  provide  you  and  your  fellows  of  a  good 
standing  to  see  his  entry."  I  thanked  him  and  said  I  was  most 
glad  of  the  news. 

402 


THE  ROSE  CROSS 

From  "  The  New  Atlantis'':  — 

God  bless  thee,  my  son;  I  will  give  thee  the  greatest  jewel  I 
have.  For  I  will  impart  unto  thee,  for  the  love  of  God  and  men,  a 
relation  of  the  true  state  of  Salomon's  House.  Son,  to  make  you 
know  the  true  state  of  Salomon's  House,  I  will  keep  this  order. 
First,  I  will  set  forth  unto  you  the  end  of  our  foundation.  Sec- 
ondly, the  preparations  and  instruments  we  have  for  our  works. 
Thirdly,  the  several  employments  and  functions  whereto  our 
fellows  are  assigned.  And  fourthly,  the  ordinances  and  rites 
which  we  observe. 

The  End  of  our  Foundation  is  the  knowledge  of  Causes,  and 
secret  motions  of  things;  and  the  enlarging  of  the  bounds  of 
Human  Empire,  to  the  effecting  of  all  things  possible. 

From  Hey  don's  "  Voyage  to  the  Land  of  the  Rosicrucians"  :  — 
God  bless  thee,  my  son;  I  will  give  thee  the  greatest  jewel  I 
have;  I  will  impart  unto  thee,  for  the  love  of  God  and  men,  a 
relation  of  the  true  state  of  the  Rosie  Crosse.  First,  I  will  set 
forth  the  end  of  our  foundation;  secondly,  the  preparations  and 
instruments  we  have  for  our  workes;  thirdly,  the  several  func- 
tions whereto  our  fellows  are  assigned;  and  fourthly,  the  ordi- 
nances and  rights  which  we  observe.  The  end  of  our  founda- 
tion is  the  knowledge  of  causes  and  secret  motion  of  things,  and 
the  enlarging  of  the  bounds  of  Kingdomes  to  the  effecting  of  all 
things  possible. 

That  the  order  of  the  Rose-Cross  was  a  Christian  organiza- 
tion these  extracts  from  the  Rosicrucian  prayer  alone  prove: — • 

Jesus  Mihi  Omnia 
Oh  Thou  everywhere  and  good  of  all,  whatsoever  I  do  remem- 
ber, I  beseech  Thee,  that  I  am  but  dust,  but  as  a  vapour  sprung 
from  earth,  which  even  Thy  smallest  breath  can  scatter.  Thou 
hast  given  me  a  soul  and  laws  to  govern  it;  let  that  fraternal  rule 
which  Thou  didst  first  appoint  to  sway  man  order  me;  make  me 
careful  to  point  at  Thy  glory  in  all  my  wayes,  and  where  I  can- 
not rightly  know  Thee,  that  not  only  my  understanding  but  my 
ignorance  may  honour  Thee  —  I  cast  myself  as  an  honourer  of 
Thee  at  Thy  feet,  and  because  I  cannot  be  defended  by  Thee 
unless  I  believe  after  Thy  laws,  keep  me,  O  my  soul's  Soveraigh, 
in  the  obedience  of  Thy  will,  and  that  I  wound  not  conscience 
with  vice  and  hiding  Thy  gifts  and  graces  bestowed  upon  me, 

403 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

for  this,  I  know,  will  destroy  me  within,  and  make  Thy  illuminat- 
ing Spirit  leave  me.  I  am  afraid  I  have  already  infinitely  swerved 
from  the  revelations  of  that  Divine  Guide  which  Thou  hast  com- 
manded to  direct  me  to  the  truth,  and  for  this  I  am  a  sad  pros- 
trate and  penitent  at  the  foot  of  Thy  throne.  I  appeal  only  to 
the  abundance  of  Thy  remissions,  O  God,  my  God.  For  outward 
things  I  thank  thee,  and  such  as  I  have  I  give  unto  others,  in  the 
name  of  the  Trinity,  freely  and  faithfully.  ...  In  what  Thou 
hast  given  me  I  am  content  —  I  beg  no  more  than  Thou  hast 
given,  and  that  to  continue  me  uncontemnedly  and  unpittiedly 
honest.  Take  me  from  myself  and  fill  me  but  with  Thee.  Sum 
up  Thy  blessings  in  these  two,  that  I  may  be  rightly  good  and 
wise,  and  these,  for  Thy  eternal  truth's  sake,  grant  and  make 
grateful.^ 

If  the  reader  will  compare  this  prayer  with  the  acknowl- 
edged and  unquestioned  prayers  of  Francis  Bacon,  we  are 
confident  that  he  will  not  doubt  that  this  is  the  coinage  of  the 
same  brain  and  the  expression  of  the  same  heart. 

^  Waite,  The  Real  History,  etc.,  pp.  444-61. 


XI 

SYMBOLISM 

It  would  not  be  amiss  to  denominate  our  era,  the  Age  of 
Unveiling.  Men  have  become  impatient  of  everything  which 
conceals  from  them  the  inscrutable  face  of  Truth,  but  could 
they  behold  it  in  its  nakedness,  it  would  appeal  to  them  far 
less  forcibly  than  it  did  when  they  beheld  it  through  the  veils 
of  symbolism.  The  actor  on  the  Hellenic  stage,  who  assumed 
the  character  of  the  divine  Zeus,  was  wise  in  speaking  through 
the  persona  which  symbolized  the  great  deity,  for  by  so  doing 
he  greatly  enhanced  the  impression  which  he  made  upon  the 
imagination  of  his  auditors.  The  modern  man  contemptu- 
ously ignores  ancient  symbolism,  but  strangely  enough  is  be- 
trayed into  employing  a  fantastic  substitute.  Take  this  pas- 
sage for  illustration,  and  volumes  of  a  similar  nature  are  being 
published:  "We  wander  in  the  mazes  of  neo-psychological 
empiricism,  and  lose  ourselves  in  the  mists  of  subliminal  con- 
sciousness." These  wordy  words,  masking  as  they  do  certain 
elusive  conceptions,  appeal,  no  doubt,  to  some  minds,  espe- 
cially to  untrained  ones,  with  a  force  which  their  translation 
into  words  of  plain  meaning  would  fail  to  exert.  Their  writer, 
perhaps,  knew  that  he  would  fail  sufficiently  to  impress  the 
mind  of  his  reader  if  he  said,  —  "We  are  perplexed  by  the 
confusions  of  modern  spiritism,  and  befogged  in  trying  to  get 
beyond  the  limits  of  consciousness":  hence  he  embodied  his 
thoughts  in  less  restricted  terms,  intended  to  be  more  sugges- 
tive to  the  imagination  than  commoner  ones,  a  method  far 
less  fruitful  in  results  than  that  employed  by  the  old  symbol- 
ists. 

Symbolism  is  to-day  receiving  the  earnest  investigation  of 
scholars.  Important  works  upon  the  subject  have  been  writ- 

40s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

ten,  which  reveal  its  influence  upon  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
past,  and  demand  the  attention  of  the  student  of  history. 
That  the  subject  is  of  deep  interest  is  evinced  by  the  collections 
in  libraries  of  works  relating  to  it ;  the  Boston  Public  Library 
alone  having  no  less  than  fifty-one  titles  of  works,  ancient  and 
modern,  treating  of  the  history  and  use  of  symbolical  em- 
blems, which  Bacon  declares  reduce  "conceits  intellectual  to 
images  sensible."  Naturally  in  our  freer  and  more  practical 
age,  we  are  wont  to  regard  these  once  precious  figures  as  fan- 
ciful and  childish,  yet  they  are  instinct  with  the  heart-beats 
of  once  living  men,  which  could  we  hear  would  tell  us  of  strug- 
gles and  sufferings  and  hopes  like  our  own. 

We  are  apt  to  forget  that  symbolism  is  vital  to  intelligent 
speech,  that  we  cannot  express  a  thought  without  the  use  of 
a  symbol.  Symbolism  in  the  form  of  pictorial  emblems  was 
especially  dear  to  the  hearts  of  men  of  the  past  with  whom  it 
partially  assumed  the  place  of  a  common  language.  We  pro- 
pose to  deal  in  a  very  brief  manner  with  but  a  few  forms  of 
cryptic  emblems  found  in  water-marks,  printed  head-  and 
tail-pieces,  and  on  title-pages. 

WATER-MARKS 

The  manufacture  of  paper  in  Europe  seems  to  have  been 
fostered  especially  by  the  "  Albigenses,"  as  they  were  known 
in  France  and  Spain,  or  "Waldenses"  in  the  Alpine  provinces, 
one  of  the  purest  of  Christian  brotherhoods  appearing  in 
history,  as  well  as  the  most  unfortunate.  Claiming  to  be  direct 
descendants  of  the  early  disciples  who  secluded  themselves 
in  the  Alpine  valleys  to  escape  the  fury  of  Nero  and  Diocle- 
tian, their  aim  was  to  exemplify  in  their  own  lives  the  simple 
truths  taught  by  Christ,  and  to  extend  their  benefits  to  others. 
The  Italians  called  them  "Cathari,"  signifying  the  pure.  They 
were  altruists  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term,  making  indus- 
try and  usefulness  to  fellow-men  inseparable  rules  of  life.  Had 
the  crusades  been  successful  they  aspired  to  establish  their 

4.06 


SYMBOLISM 

faith,  which  they  conceived  had  come  down  to  them  from 
Jerusalem,  in  the  city  where  it  originated.  Naturally  they 
came  into  conflict  with  ecclesiastical  power,  and,  in  the  end, 
were  virtually  exterminated.  In  the  sack  of  Beziers  alone  it 
is  said  that  twenty  thousand  of  the  people  were  put  to  death, 
and  that  when  the  Abbot  of  Citeaux  was  asked  how  to  dis- 
tinguish the  heretic  from  the  faithful,  his  reply  was,  "Kill 
them  all,  God  will  know  his  own." 

In  1545,  Francis  I  destroyed  twenty-two  of  their  villages 
and  massacred  four  thousand  persons,  and  as  late  as  1655,  so 
brutal  were  their  persecutors  that  Milton  was  moved  to  write 
his  familiar  poem,  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints." 
Some  who  escaped  reached  England  and  northern  Europe, 
where,  being  expert  paper-makers,  they  practiced  their  art. 
Here  more  remote  from  the  central  fires  of  persecution,  and 
scattered  among  busy  communities,  they  escaped  the  sharp 
scrutiny  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  lived  in  greater 
security,  spreading  silently  the  tenets  of  their  faith  abroad, 
thereby  preparing  the  ground  for  the  coming  Reformation 
from  which  they  hoped  great  things.  But  the  reformation  of 
humanity  is  not  of  mushroom  growth,  but  of  slow  develop- 
ment. We  speak  of  the  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance  as 
though  they  were  compassed  by  narrow  and  well-defined  lines, 
but  they  are  only  convenient  terms  incapable  of  exact  delimi- 
tation. 

The  Reformation  came  and  disappointed  them.  For  social 
reformation  expands  in  perfection  as  slowly  as  the  human 
hearts  inwhich  it  finds  its  roots.  They  had  been  deceived  in  the 
heaven  they  expected  on  earth  by  a  change  in  outward  forms 
and  observances,  and  soon  found  that  they  had  only  exchanged 
masters.  Had  the  old  rulers  possessed  but  a  remnant  of  that 
heavenly  wisdom  which  they  had  received,  and,  cherishing  it 
as  a  pearl  beyond  price,  had  led  men  with  a  gentle  but  firm 
hand,  instead  of  driving  thousands  of  their  most  industrious 
and  well-intentioned  subjects  to  death,  —  for  Torquemada 

407 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

alone,  according  to  official  reports,  burned  alive  10,220  human 
beings,  and  inflicted  upon  97,321  the  penalty  of  infamy,  con- 
fiscation, and  imprisonment,  the  horrors  of  which  are  too  pain- 
ful to  read,  —  they  would  have  continued  to  rule  the  world ; 
or  had  the  new  rulers  profited  by  the  mistakes  of  their  pred- 
ecessors, their  cause  would  have  flourished  beyond  their 
brightest  expectations;  but,  says  Beard,  "We  are  obliged  to 
confess  that  especially  in  Germany  it  [the  new  order]  soon 
parted  company  with  free  learning,  that  it  turned  its  back 
upon  culture,  that  it  lost  itself  in  a  maze  of  arid  theological 
controversy,  that  it  held  out  no  hand  to  awakening  science."^ 
Even  Luther  declared  that  when  all  men  possessed  the  Bible 
no  more  books  would  be  written,  for  that  would  be  enough. 
Nor  did  the  destruction  of  human  beings  cease,  for,  says  Bay- 
ley,  "the  atrocities  of  witch-hunting  ran  the  Inquisition  very 
close."  2  "In  many  cities  of  Germany  the  average  number  of 
executions  for  this  pretended  crimewas  six  hundred  annually,"^ 
and  in  England,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  thousands  likewise 
perished,  and  can  we  believe  that  Bacon's  "Advancement  of 
Learning"  was  denounced  as  heretical  and  impertinent,  and 
placed  on  the  Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum  .f'  Says  Bayley, 
"A  list  of  English  writers  who  suffered  from  the  baleful  effects 
of  Government  repression  —  would  include  the  names  of  prac- 
tically all  our  great  writers  until  the  concluding  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century."  ^ 

To  return  to  the  Albigenses :  to  them  is  attributed  the  use  of 
water-marks  in  paper.  These  marks  exhibit  a  great  variety 
of  forms  of  rude  design.^  Among  them  we  shall  note  the  chal- 

*  C.  Beard,  B.A.,  The  Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth  Century  in  its  Relation  to 
Modern  Thought  and  Knowledge,  p.  298.  London,  1897.  Cf.  Heckthorne,  Secret 
Societies,  etc. 

2  Harold  Bayley,  A  New  Light  on  the  Renaissance,  etc.,  p.  131;.  London,  191 1. 
^  Charles  Mackay,  Memoirs  of  Extraordinary  Popular  Delusions,  vol.  11, 
p.  102.  London,  1869. 

*  Bayley,  A  New  Light,  etc.,  p.  209. 

^  C.  M.  Briquet,  Les  Filigranes;  Dictionnaire  Historique  des  Marques  du 
Papier.  London,  1908. 

408 


SYMBOLISM 


ice,  or  "pot,"  as  it  was  vulgarly  called,  which  represented  the 
Holy  Grail,  from  which  Christ  drank  at  the  Last  Supper ;  the 
cluster  of  grapes,  signifying  spiritual  truth ;  the  double  candle- 
sticks, bearers  of  light  to  dispel  the  darkness  of  error;  the 
crescent,  symbol  of  faith;  the  bugle,  to  proclaim  the  gospels 
to  mankind;  the  hand,  signifying,  when  upright,  industry; 
reversed,  benediction;  the  crown,  victory.  Even  instruments 
of  torture  were  represented.  Combined  with  these  were  letters 
often  reversed  or  diagonally  placed,  and  other  peculiarities, 
the  significance  of  which  is  lost,  but  which  once  were  preg- 
nant with  meaning,  for  the  emblem  of  which  they  were  a  part 
served  as  a  vehicle  of  thought,  "A  silent  parable,"  as  Quarles 
defines  it,  in  an  age  when  an  open  expression  of  opinion,  not 
consonant  with  that  of  the  ruling  power,  was  a  challenge  to 
death.  Of  their  use,  Bayley  says:  — 

It  seems  to  have  been  a  happy  thought  on  the  part  of  the  paper- 
^makers  to  flash  signals  of  hope  and  encouragement  to  their  fellow- 
exiles  in  far  distant  countries,  serving  at  the  same  time  as  an  in- 
centive to  faith,  and  godliness  in  themselves.^ 

We  see,  then,  that  anciently  water-marks  in  paper  were  not 
simply  trade-marks  as  they  are  now;  indeed,  investigation 
shows  that  they  were 
used  not  only  in  a  spe- 
cial way  in  books,  but 
by  individuals  in  their 
private  correspondence. 
The  Bacon  family  seem 
to  have  held  them  in 
especial  favor  prior  even 
to  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth their  favorite  mark   ^^^^^  marks  used  by  Nicholas,  anthony 

'  ^  AND   FRANCIS  BACON 

being  the  grail,  or  pot, 

sometimes  bearing  the  initials  of  the  writer.    Francis  and 

Anthony  used  this  device,  as  their  letters  show.  Several  other 

/  Harold  Bayley,  A  New  Light j  etc.,  p.  40. 
409 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

symbols  appear  in  the  works  of  Francis,  some  used  by  his 
faithful  friend,  Rawley,  after  his  death.  In  his  "Advancement 
of  Learning"  of  1605,  he  uses  clusters  of  grapes.  Such  clus- 
ters are  found  in  the  "Shakespeare"  Folios  of  1623,  and  in 
1632,  though  printed  by  different  printers.  Of  their  signifi- 
cation Bacon  thus  speaks:  — 

Other  men,  as  well  in  ancient  as  in  modern  times,  have  in  the 
matter  of  sciences  drunk  a  crude  liquor  like  water,  either  flow- 
ing spontaneously  from  the  understanding,  or  drawn  up  by  logic, 
as  by  wheels  from  a  well.  Whereas  I  pledge  mankind  in  a  liquor 
strained  from  countless  grapes,  from  grapes  ripe  and  fully  sea- 
soned, collected  in  clusters,  and  then  squeezed  in  the  press,  and 
finally  purified  and  clarified  in  the  vat.  And  therefore  it  is  no 
wonder  if  they  and  I  do  not  think  alike.  ^ 

Besides  the  pot  the  Bacons  used  the  crescent,  fleur-de-lis, 
double  candlesticks,  a  hand,  horns,  a  shield,  and  a  mirror. 
It  is  proper  to  say  that  these  were  sometimes  of  ancient  date,, 
were  varied  in  form,  and  combined  with  other  symbolic  fig- 
ures according  to  the  fancy  of  those  who  used  them,  and  it 
seems  probable  were  not  always  used  with  design.  The  pres- 
ent writer,  who  some  time  ago  made  a  study  of  the  so-called 
"Merchant  Marks," — which  are  supposed  to  have  originated 
during  the  crusades,^  —  has  found  numerous  instances  in 
which  these  curious  cross-emblems,  no  doubt  handed  down 
by  crusading  ancestors,  are  combined  with  the  shield,  bugle, 
and  crown,  as  well  as  with  various  other  emblematic  forms,  by 
their  descendants,  and  used  in  their  water-marks.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  some  of  the  works,  not  published  under  Bacon's 
name,  in  which  cryptic  emblems  used  by  him  appear. 

Inthe  First  Folio  of  the  "  Shakespeare  "  plays  appear  crowns, 
clusters  of  grapes,  the  fleur-de-lis,  and,  in  the  Second  Folio, 
one  like  that  in  Bacon's  "History  of  Life  and  Death."  In 
Marlowe's  works,  published  in  1613,  twenty-one  years  after  his 

^  Spedding,  Novum  Organum,  vol.  viii,  p.  155. 
*  The  Trelazvny  Papers,  p.  472.  Portland,  1884. 

410 


SYMBOLISM 

death,  the  water-marks  comprise  bar  and  grapes  —  the  same 
as  in  the  "Shakespeare''  Folio  of  1623,  except  a  change  in 
letters ;  —  the  pot,  hand,  crown,  and  crescent. 

Ireland  tells  us  that  in  preparing  his  forgeries  he  at 
length  gleaned  the  intelligence  that  a  jug  was  the  prevalent 
water-mark  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth ; 

In  consequence  of  which  I  inspected  all  the  sheets  of  old  paper 
in  my  possession,  and  having  selected  such  as  had  the  jug  upon 
them,  I  produced  the  succeeding  manuscripts  upon  these,  being 
careful,  however,  to  mingle  with  them  a  certain  number  of  blank 
leaves,  that  the  production  on  a  sudden  of  so  many  water- 
marks might  not  excite  suspicion  in  the  breasts  of  those  per- 
sons who  were  most  conversant  with  the  manuscripts. 

The  most  striking  water-marks,  however,  appear  in  "  Spen- 
ser's "  "Faerie  Queene"  of  1596.  Here  are  the  pot  and  grapes 
of  Bacon,  the  F.  B.  reversed:  B,  and  A.  B.  All  this  is  curiously 
suggestive,  but,  unfortunately,  in  our  present  state  of  knowl- 
edge regarding  symbolical  emblems,  it  is  unsafe  to  base  theo- 
ries upon  them. 

CRYPTOGRAMS 

Like  paper  marks  were  the  head-pieces  and  colophons  which 
embellished  the  books  of  the  sixteenth  century;  they  were 
cryptic,  and  to  the  initiated  revealed  meanings  which  they 
regarded  as  verhi  sapienti  of  deep  significance.  Note,  for  ex- 
ample, the  squirrel  and  nut,  used  in  more  modern  devices  for 
mere  ornament,  which  formerly  suggested  that  the  shell  of 
the  letter  must  be  cracked  to  get  at  the  precious  kernel  of 
truth  within. 

We  reproduce  a  cryptic  device  often  found  with  some  varia- 
tions in  books  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  later.  This  head- 
piece comprises  several  emblems,  the  squirrel  already  men- 
tioned, and  the  light  and  dark  A  in  whose  sheltering  curves 
recline  the  Asvins,  two  cherubic  figures  with  a  sheaf  of  wheat 
between  them.  These  Asvins  are  said  to  signify  the  duahsm 
of  creative  energy. 

411 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


It  is  noticeable  that  the  following  device  appears  in  the 


"Spenser"  Folio  of  1611   and  in  the  "Shakespeare"  Folios 
of  1623  and  1632. 

We  also  reproduce  a  modification  of  the  double  A  head-piece 
with  some  of  the  minor  emblems,  and  the  Asvins,  or  twin 
children  as  they  are  sometimes  called,  left  out;  the  scrolls 
somewhat  changed,  and  a  vase  of  fruit,  signifying  plenty,  sub- 
stituted for  the  wheat.  This  is  the  familiar  head-piece  found 


in  the  "Shakespeare"  Quartos,  and  first  appears  in  them  on 
the  title-page  of  the  "Contention"  of  1594,  as  it  is  here 
reproduced.  The  late  Dr.  Piatt  saw  in  this  modified  form  of 
the  more  ornate  head-piece  the  name  "F.  Bacon."  He  points 
out  that  by  turning  the  device  upside  down  the  left  curve  of 
the  A,  which  then  appears  at  the  right,  appears  to  be  a  long/, 
a  sprig  forming  the  clavus;  that  then  turning  it  half  round  to 
the  left,  B  is  disclosed,  and  repeating  this  movement.  A,  the 
left  limb  of  which  is  a  reversed  C,  which  he  says  the  old  print- 

412 


SYMBOLISM 

ers  used  to  indicate  the  syllable  con.  This  gives  "F.  Ba''  or 
"F.  Bacon."  ^  Of  course,  treating  an  ancient  symbolic  group 
in  the  way  seen  in  the  head-piece  would  be  a  convenient  way 
of  concealing  an  author's  name,  and  one  which  an  ingenious 
man  might  well  adopt ;  but  we  must  not  hastily  accept  Dr. 
Piatt's  theory,  though  the  name  he  shows  us  appears  to  be  as 
plain  as  many  of  the  concealed  forms  in  a  modern  newspaper 
puzzle. 

If  we  discard  the  cryptic  features  of  this  head-piece  alto- 
gether, the  fact  of  its  careful  use  on  the  anonymous  Quartos, 
and  those  bearing  the  name  "  Shakespeare,"  seem  to  indicate 
that  they  were  by  one  and  the  same  author,  who  took  pains 
to  conceal  his  authorship  of  them  from  the  world  of  his  day, 
while  leaving  upon  them  a  secret  mark  by  which  they  might 
eventually  be  identified.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  one  would  claim 
that  the  Stratford  actor  could  have  done  this.  It  is  certainly 
a  suggestive  fact  that  this  head-piece  was  used  in  the  "  Shake- 
speare" Quartos  from  1594  to  1609,  as  well  as  in  the  "Argenis," 
probably  translated  in  1623,  and  that  the  Quartos  were  printed 
by  five  rival  houses,  in  some  cases  far  removed  in  point  of 
time  from  one  another,  which  seems  to  indicate  a  directing 
mind,  and  not  mere  coincidence.  Of  course  this  head-piece 
has  attracted  the  attention  of  students,  and  Stratfordians 
were  delighted  when  it  was  found  in  a  Latin  book  ^  bearing 
the  date  1563,  before  Bacon  was  three  years  old.  Strangely 
enough,  the  author.  Porta,  like  Trithemius,  was  a  writer  upon 
ciphers,  and  this  book  treats  of  the  art  of  concealment.  Mr. 
Smedley,^  however,  who  has  made  an  exhaustive  search  to 
settle  the  question  of  the  earliest  use  of  this  noted  head-piece, 
has  discovered  that  Porta's  book  was  printed  in  London  in 
1 591,  and  falsely  dated  1563  so  as  to  pass  for  the  first  edition, 
in  which  the  head-piece  does  not  appear.   Mr.  Smedley  con- 

*  Isaac  Hull  Piatt,  Bacon  Cryptograms,  pp.  24.   Boston,  1905. 

*  loan  Baptista  Porta,  De  Furtivis  Literarum  Notts  Vulgo.  Naples,  mdlxiii. 
'  William  T.  Smedley,  The  Mystery  of  Francis  Bacon,  p.  134.  London,  1912. 

413 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

eludes  "that  Francis  Bacon  was  directing  the  production  of 
a  great  quantity  of  the  Elizabethan  literature,  and  in  every 
book  in  the  production  of  which  he  was  interested,  he  caused 
to  be  inserted  one  of  these  devices.  He  kept  the  blocks  in  his 
own  custody;  he  sent  them  out  to  a  printer  when  a  book  was 
approved  by  him  for  printing.  On  the  completion  of  the  work, 
the  printer  returned  the  blocks  to  Bacon  so  that  they  could 
be  sent  elsewhere  by  him  as  occasion  required";  and  he  gives 
a  list  of  the  works  in  which  the  favorite  head-piece  appears.^ 
In  a  recent  letter  to  the  present  writer  Mr.  Smedley  says: — 

The  earliest  use  of  the  design  with  a  light  A  and  dark  A  which 
I  have  found  is  in  a  work  entitled  "Hebraicum  Alphabethum  Jo 
Bovlaese"  published  in  Paris  in  1576.  The  book  ends  with  the 
sentence  "Ex  Collegio  Montis-Acuti  20  Decembris  1576."  So 
the  date  of  the  publication  was  probably  between  January  and 
March,  1576,  which  according  to  our  present  method  would  be 

1577. 

I  have  a  copy  of  this  work  bound  up  with  a  book  bearing  the 
title  "Sive  compendium,  quintacunque  Ratione  fieri  potuit  am- 
plessimum,  Totuis  linguae,"  published  in  Paris,  1566.  Both  are 
interleaved  and  altered  and  amplified  in  Francis  Bacon's  hand- 
writing for  a  second  edition.  The  latter  contains  the  equivalent 
of  the  Hebrew  in  Greek,  Chaldaeic,  Syriac,  and  Arabic.  So  far  I 
have  been  unable  to  find  that  a  second  edition  of  these  works  was 
published.  But  these  manuscripts  bear  evidence  of  young  Ba- 
con's command  of  languages  in  1 576.  I  beheve  that  just  as  Philip 
Melancthon  was  working  for  Thomas  Anshelmus,  the  Printer, 
when  at  Tubingen  University  at  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  of 
age,  so  Francis  Bacon  was  employed  in  Paris  as  early  as  1576. 

This  head-piece  not  only  appears  in  the  "  Shakespeare  "  and 
Bacon  Works,  but  those  of  Marlowe  and  Spenser,  as  well  as 
the  so-called  King  James  version  of  the  Bible.  The  King  was 
inordinately  proud  of  his  knowledge  of  Latin,  and  the  trans- 
lators, when  they  had  completed  their  work,  submitted  it  to 
him  for  criticism,  and  it  remained  in  his  possession  for  some 
time.   Bacon  was  then  high  in  his  favor,  and  this  has  given 

*  William  T.  Smedley,  The  Mystery  of  Francis  Bacon,  p.  139. 

414 


SYAIBOLISM 


TIME  REVEALING  TRUTH 


rise  to  the  opinion  that,  knowing  his  great  literary  ability, 
James  might  have  employed  him  to  go  over  the  work  of  the 
translators  with  him.  How 
much  the  work  might  have 
been  revised  is  unknown, 
but  whoever  aided  in  the 
revision  may  have  added 
many  of  the  graces  with 
which  this  remarkable  pro- 
duction abounds.  Cer- 
tainly the  appearance  of 
Bacon's  cryptic  mark 
could  not  fail  to  be  notice- 
able in  this  book  as  in 
others,  with  some  of  which 
it  is  now  known  he  had 
something  to  do.  Attention  was,  of  course,  called  to  this,  and 
has  amused  Stratfordians  as  much  as  some  of  their  specula- 
tions have  amused  their  opponents. 

That  Bacon  was  associated  with  Baudoin  in  his  book  on 
Emblems  ^  appears  in  the  preface :  — 

The  great  Chancellor,  Bacon,  having  awakened  in  me  the  de- 
sire of  working  at  these  emblems,  has  furnished  me  the  principal 
ones  which  I  have  drawn  from  the  ingenious  explanation  that  he 
has  given  of  some  fables,  and  from  his  other  works. 

This  same  Baudoin  translated  Bacon's  Essays  into  French 
in  1626.  Mr.  Smedley  says:  — 

The  first  volume  of  Emblemata  in  which  traces  of  Bacon's  hand 
are  to  be  found  is  in  the  1577  edition  of  Alciat's  Emblems,  pub- 
lished by  the  Plantin  Press,  with  notes  by  Claude  Mignault.^ 

This  edition  bears  the  head-piece  which  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing. 

*  Jean  Baudoin,  Recueil  d'Emhlemes.  Paris,  1638. 

2  William  T.  Smedley,  The  Mystery  of  Francis  Bacon,  p.  141  et  seq.  Cf.  Deal- 
ings with  the  Dead,  Oliver  Lector. 

41S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


There  are  several  other  emblem  books  interesting  to  stu- 
dents of  Bacon,  one  by  Bonitius  of  1659,  which  we  have 
thus  far  been  unable  to  consult,  but  there  is  not  the  least 
doubt  that  Bacon,  among  his  many  literary  activities,  was 
personally  interested  in  the  publication  of  a  number  of  emblem 
books.  In  these  we  should  expect  to  find  emblems  relating  to 
him.  We  will  produce  but  the  following. 

In  his  "New  Atlantis"  published  by  Rawley  a  few  months 
after  his  death,  we  find  Time  drawing  from  an  open  tomb  a 
nude  woman  with  the  motto,  "  In  time  the  hidden  truth  shall 
be  revealed."  This  puts  us  in  memory  of  the  words  of  Raw- 
ley: — 

Be  this  moreover  enough  to  have  laid,  as  it  were,  the  founda- 
tions, in  the  name  of  the  present  age.  Every  age  will,  methinks, 
adorn  and  amplify  this  structure,  but  to  what  age  it  may  be 

vouchsafed  to  set 
the  finishing  hand 
—  this  is  known 
only  to  God  and 
the  Fates. ^ 

This  same  fig- 
ure appears  in  a 
book  which  gives 
a  history  of  the 
early  years  of  the 
reign  of  King 
James  I,  and  is 
entitled  "Truth 
brought  to  Light 
and  discovered 
by  Time." 

In  the  following  we  see  Fortune  standing  upon  a  sphere, 
and  raising  with  her  right  hand  to  the  pinnacle  of  Fame  a  fig- 
ure wearing  the  hat  which  distinguishes  Bacon,  as  clearly  as 

^  Manes  Verulamianij  Introduction.   London,  1626. 
416 


FORTUNE  CASTING  DOWN  THE  ACTOR 


SYMBOLISM 


the  helmet  does  Pericles ;  while  with  the  other  she  casts  down 
an  actor  wearing  the  equally  distinguishing  buskins. 

The  "Minerva  Britannia"  of  1 612  ptesents  to  us  an  equally 
revealing  emblem.  On  the  title-page  appears  an  oval  wreathed 
with  laurel,  and  a  Latin  motto  which,  translated,  is  "One  lives 
in  his  genius,  other  things  depart  in  death,"  and  opposite 
page  °33,  which  is  the  numerical  name  of  Bacon,  "To  the 
most  judicious 
and  learned  Sir 
Francis  Bacon, 
Knight."  With- 
in the  oval  is 
the  proscenium 
of  a  theater, 
the  curtain  sup- 
posed to  con- 
ceal the  figure 
of  a  man  whose 
forearm  only 
appears,  the 
hand  holding  a 

pen  with  which  it  has  written,  "  By  the  mind  shall  I  be  seen." 
This  finds  an  echo  in  the  "Attourney's  Academy,"  dedi- 
cated "To  True  Nobility  and  Tryde  learning  beholden  To 
no  Mountaine  for  Eminence,  nor  supportment  for  Height. 
Francis  Lord  Verulam  and  Viscount  St.  Albans." 

O  give  me  leave  to  pull  the  Curtayne  by 
That  clouds  thy  Worth  in  such  obscurity. 
Stay  Seneca,  stay  but  awhile  thy  bleeding, 
T'accept  what  I  received  at  thy  Reading; 
Here  I  present  it  in  a  solemne  strayne, 
And  thus  I  pluckt  the  Curtayne  backe  again. 

We  could  show  scores  of  similar  emblems  and  many  pages 
to  illustrate  Bacon's  unwritten  life,  did  space  permit.  A  sin- 
gle contemporary  allusion  to  the  Stratford  actor  of  equal  sig- 


THE  CONCEALED  DRAMATIC  AUTHOR. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

nificance  would  be  hailed  as  sufficient  proof  of  his  authorship 
of  the  immortal  dramas. 

TITLE-PAGES 

Quite  as  interesting  a  use  of  cryptograms  is  found  on  title- 
pages.  We  will  examine  several  the  meaning  of  which  is  too 
evident  to  mistake. 

The  first  title-page  is  of  a  book  treating  of  cryptography, 
and  the  stenographic  system  of  Trithemius,  pseudonym  of 
Gustavus  Selenus,  published  at  Lunenburg  in  1624.  The  au- 
thor styles  himself  the  Homo  Lunae,  or  Man  in  the  Moon. 
The  book,  however,  was  fathered  by  Augustus,  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick, whose  directions  to  the  engraver,  transcripts  of  which 
the  writer  has  found  in  several  collections  of  literary  material, 
are  a  curious  example  of  the  care  exercised  in  having  at  hand, 
of  easy  access  to  the  over-curious,  a  simple  method  of  turning 
him  aside,  for  the  greatest  minds  of  this  age  played  with  cryp- 
tograms, employing  the  most  insignificant,  and  to  us  seemingly 
childish,  devices  in  their  game  of  hide-and-seek,  to  mislead 
the  inexpert.  In  this  case  the  engraver  is  told  to  show  Trithe- 
mius at  a  table  with  a  man  lifting  the  philosopher's  hat  from 
his  head.  The  man  shown,  however,  is  not  Trithemius  at  all, 
but  quite  unlike  him,  as  his  portrait  unmistakably  reveals. 
The  question  is,  why  was  this  change  .^^  The  most  probable 
theory  is  that  the  directions  were  a  simple  exhibition  of  craft. 
It  is  just  possible,  of  course,  that  the  Duke,  about  to  begin  his 
book,  consulted  Bacon  —  the  head  of  the  secret  brotherhood 
to  which  both  belonged  —  upon  the  subject,  and  that  he,  see- 
ing in  it  one  of  those  opportunities  of  which  he  had  before 
availed  himself,  arranged  to  conceal  in  it  the  key  to  the  First 
Folio,  at  that  time  in  press.  This  would  account  more  readily 
to  the  modern  mind  for  the  changes  in  the  figures  on  the  title- 
page,  but  a  knowledge  of  the  methods  employed  by  the  old 
cryptographers  incline  us  to  the  view  that  the  directions 
to  the  engraver  were  intended  to  be  misleading.    Mr.  Bow- 

418 


v*-,.^^. 


mM.'.:Am- 


GusTA VI  Sel  eni 

CRYPTOME. 

NYTICES  ETCRY 

PTOGRAPHIvE 
Libri  IX. 

In  quihus  (^ plariipmo-p 
|STEGANOGRAPHI/£ 

a 

ohanneTrithemio, 

ribbate  Spanhcymenri<Sc  Hcrbipolenfi, 
acirnirandiingcmjViro,magicc& 
an;gmaiice  o.im  coa- 
ler iptx, 

£  N  O  D  A  no 

traditnr. 

nfperfis  ubique  Authorisac 

Aliorum ,  non  (.ontemacndis 


SYMBOLISM 

ditch  ^  seems  to  have  first  called  attention  to  this  book  as  an  in- 
genious example  of  the  cryptic  art,  and  he  points  out  the  rela- 
tion which  it  holds  to  the  Folio,  giving  examples  of  the  skill  of 
his  friend,  the  late  Samuel  Cabot,  based  on  a  wide  knowledge 
of  ancient  cryptographs,  in  discovering  Bacon  in  the  plays. 


r— 

A 

€ 

I 

oivl 

ll 

€ 

^ 

^ 

!P 

^ 

I 

c 

b 

>m 

Ll 

I 

r$ 

% 

n 

1(\^\ 

0 

<L 

0 

f^ 

^arta  TahuUy  ex  Vigenerio ,  pag:  202.  b* 
n)mdicat  fibiprmpHum^  quod  Vocalibm  tanthrtLA 
Jcriberebk  liceat. 


THE  CIPHER  KEY 


That  the  Duke's  book,  and  its  pictorial  title-page,  disclose  the 
true  story  of  their  authorship  is  certain.  Even  Bacon's  cipher 
key  is  given  in  it,  a  fact  of  remarkable  significance  in  itself. 
But  still  more  so  is  the  fact  that  the  author  dedicates  it,  as 
Maier  dedicated  his  Rosicrucian  book  eight  years  earlier,  to 
"Dr.  Francisco,  Antonio,  London,  Anglo,  Seniori,"  which 
fully  "identifies  Francis  and  Anthony  Bacon,  of  London,  Eng- 
land, though  to  the  initiated  Francis  alone,  as  Anthony  had 
then  been  dead  twenty-three  years.  Besides,  the  author  at  the 

1  Charles  P.  Bowditch,  The  Connection  of  Francis  Bacon  with  the  First  Folio 
of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  etc.,  with  the  Book  on  Cipher  of  his  Time.  Cambridge, 
1910. 

419 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

outset  calls  attention  to  the  well-known  fact  that  Bacon  as- 
sisted Camden  in  his  historical  work,  and  refers  to  that  au- 
thor's "Remains,"  published  in  1616,  where,  under  the  head 
"Surnames,"  page  16,  appears  a  head-piece  upside  down, 
which  would  pass  as  an  error  were  it  not  a  well-known  device 
to  call  attention  to  something  concealed,  a  method,  says  Law- 
rence, "  continually  resorted  to  when  some  revelation  concern- 
ing Bacon's  works  is  given."  Under  this  heading  appear  the 
names  of  a  village  which  never  existed,  "  Bacon  Creping,"  and 
"Shakespeare,  Shotbolt  and  Wagstaffe."  ^  This  would  sig- 
nify nothing  but  for  this  cryptic  book,  the  title-page  of  which 
is  here  produced.  This  title-page  especially  appeals  to  us,  for 
not  only  are  the  figures  of  the  true  and  the  false  author  plainly 
recognizable,  but  the  same  figures  reappear  on  the  title-page 
of  Bacon's  "History  of  Henry  the  Seventh"  in  1642.  These 
title-pages  are  here  printed  together  for  comparison.  In  the 
first  of  these,  in  the  panel  on  the  right,  is  the  figure  of  a  gentle- 
man, as  he  has  a  sword  at  his  side,  and  wears  a  hat.  He  is  giv- 
ing a  book  or  manuscript  to  a  rustic,  with  hat  in  hand,  hold- 
ing a  spear  in  his  left  hand.  The  rustic  is  seen  alone  walking 
off  briskly  with  a  staff,  carrying  his  spear  on  his  left  shoulder 
with  his  "fardels  on  his  back,"  and  the  book  or  writings  en- 
trusted to  him.  Near  the  top  of  the  panel  is  an  eagle,  the  mes- 
senger of  Jove,  which  has  possessed  itself  of  the  writing  en- 
trusted to  the  careless  rustic,  and  is  bearing  it  to  immortality 
in  spite  of  the  bolt  intended  to  arrest  its  flight.^ 

The  figure  of  the  gentleman  is  a  suggestive  likeness  of 
Bacon  with  the  conventional  hat,  and  the  rustic  of  the  actor, 
whose  face  is  unmistakably  the  one  which  was  originally  on 
his  Stratford  tomb.  On  the  opposite  panel  he  is  seen  on  horse- 
back riding  toward  a  city  triumphantly  blowing  his  horn.  He 
is  the  same  figure  with  the  sprig  in  his  hat,  and  the  exagger- 
ated spur  on  the  right  heel  of  his  buskin,  for  he  is  now  a  gen- 
tleman having  a  coat  of  arms.  This  buskin  alone  would  iden- 

^  Bacon  is  Shakespeare ,  p.  114.      ^  Bowditch  mistakes  the  eagle  for  a  dove. 

420 


iVG.BATAVOR. 
Apud  Tranc.Hackium 


v.Ddlcti.JBu^, 


SYMBOLISM 

tify  his  calling.  At  the  top  of  the  picture  in  an  oval  panel  is  a 
city  under  a  tempestuous  sky  at  night,  illuminated  by  numer- 
ous beacons.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
the  letters  ea  in  this  word  were  given  the  sound  of  long  a^  which 
led  to  a  play  upon  Bacon's  name,  he  being  called  "Bacon," 
the  great  "  Beacon  of  the  State."  This  panel  is  also  decorated 
with  conventional  masks  of  Tragedy,  Comedy,  and  Farce, 
which  are  quite  out  of  place  in  a  book  of  this  character.  In  the 
lower  panel  the  man  who  is  seen  giving  the  manuscript  to  the 
rustic  appears  seated  at  a  table  writing  in  a  massive  volume. 
The  rustic,  now  arrayed  in  one  of  the  "glaring  Satten  Sutes," 
ascribed  to  actors  by  the  author  of  "The  Return  from  Parnas- 
sus," holds  a  rope  attached  to  the  writer's  girdle  to  show  his 
subservience  to  him,  and  is  lifting  the  heraldic  Cap  of  Main- 
tenance from  his  superior's  head,  evidently  to  put  this  honor- 
able decoration  upon  his  own.  The  Cap  of  Maintenance, 
symbol  of  nobility,  was  coveted  by  the  gentry  and  was  finally 
appropriated  by  them.^ 

A  remarkable  title-page  is  in  the  edition  of  Montaigne's 
Essays  published  in  London  in  1632.  Montaigne  was  a  friend 
of  Bacon,  who  has  been  criticized  for  imitating  him  in  some 
of  his  essays.  The  Frenchman's  work  was  first  published  in 
Bordeaux  in  1580,  about  the  time  that  its  author  became 
mayor  of  that  city.  In  1601,  John  Florio,  also  a  friend  of  Ba- 
con, translated  it  into  English,  and  it  became  quite  popular 
among  the  few  who  read  such  works.  We  are  gravely  told  by 
a  recent  orthodox  writer  that  "His  essays  were  diligently  read 
by  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,"  presumably  because  the  plays 
and  Bacon's  Essays  are  thought  to  reflect  their  influence. 
Florio,  it  should  be  remembered,  translated  Bacon's  Essays 
into  French.  Let  us  examine  this  title-page:  Looking  at  it 
we  see  on  the  right  a  broken  arch,  which  is  a  reversed  letter 
F:  the  two  open  arches  in  the  background,  a  letter  B^  which 
is  best  seen  by  turning  the  page  half  to  the  right.  We  thus 

^  Century  Dictionary,  in  loco. 
421 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

have  the  initials  of  Bacon's  name.  To  make  this  still  plainer, 
looking  through  the  arch  on  the  left  we  see  in  the  distance  a 
beacon.  The  letters  are  reversed,  presumably  to  make  the  puz- 
zle more  difficult  to  decipher.  Of  course,  it  might  be  claimed 
that  the  arches  were  so  formed  accidentally,  but  when  we  care- 
fully read  a  little  poem  appended  to  it,  we  find  ourselves  in- 
formed that  each  "leaf  and  angle"  has  a  hidden  meaning,  and 

If  then 
You  understand  not,  give  him  room  that  can. 

To  show  Bacon's  connection  with  Montaigne's  "  Essays, " 
we  have  two  witnesses ;  his  handwriting  in  the  Bordeaux  Mon- 
taigne of  1588  and  the  title-page  to  the  English  translation  of 
1632. 

The  question  of  what  might  have  been  Bacon's  connec- 
tion with  Montaigne's  Essays  has  occasioned  some  discussion, 
but  more  speculation,  especially  stimulated  by  the  cryptic 
title-page,  which  we  have  described.  Professor  Strowski^  has 
called  attention  to  a  copy  of  the  1588  edition  of  these  Essays 
belonging  to  the  city  of  Bordeaux,  of  which  Montaigne  was 
mayor  for  the  period  of  four  years  previous  to  this  date.  This 
particular  copy  of  this  edition  is  copiously  annotated  on  its 
"shining  margents"  and  is  "extended  by  the  addition  of  a 
third  book."  In  the  Gournay  edition  of  1595,  some  of  these 
notes  were  used,  but  until  now  they  seem  to  have  escaped 
critical  examination.  Mr.  Smedley  has  called  attention  to  one 
of  these  pages  of  which  he  says  that  "every  word  of  writing  .  .  . 
is  from  the  hand  of  Francis  Bacon."  Latin,  as  in  the  case  of 
Montaigne,  was  his  mother  tongue,  and  was  the  language  he 
usually  employed  when  writing  on  the  margins  of  Greek,  He- 
brew, and  Latin  works.  Mr.  Smedley  selects  from  this  page 
the  words  "Socrates"  and  " Socratique,"  which  he  compares 

^  The  Bordeaux  Montaigne,  edited  by  Fortunat  Strowski,  has  recently  been 
pubUshed  under  the  title,  Les  Essais  de  Michel  de  Montaigne.  Publics  d'apres 
I'exemplaire  de  Bordeaux,  etc.  Sous  les  auspices  de  la  Commission  des  Ar- 
chives Municipales.  Bordeaux.  Imprimerie  Nouvelle  F.  Pech  &  O®.  1909. 
Vol.  2. 

422 


SYMBOLISM 


with  the  same  words  found  in  a  copy  of  Plato's  works  in  Greek, 
similarly  annotated  by  Bacon.  With  his  consent  we  reproduce 
his  illustration. 

Mr.  Smedley  calls  attention  to  the  fact 

that  in  each  case  the  three  first  letters,  Soc,  are  never  joined  to- 
gether. In  the  Montaigne  the  c  is  not  joined  to  the  r,  and  the 
samepecuHarity  is  found 

in  specimens  given  from         Oo^^*^  f^cr^a, 

the  Plato  volume.  Then 
in  every  case  rati  is  writ- 
ten without  taking  off 
the  pen. 

Let  us  now  turn  to 
Bacon's  acknowledged 
works,  and  first  the 
title-page  of  his  "De 
Verulamio  Sermones 
Fideles."  On  the  title- 
page  we  have  the  fig- 
ure of  a  philosopher — 
Bacon —  pointing  with 
his  right  hand  to  a 
female  poised  upon  a 
globe,  and  holding  a  scroll  which  serves  as  a  sail  to  bear  her 
along,  and  if  we  turn  to  the  "New  Atlantis"  we  find  that  a 
virgin  with  a  scroll  signifies  Poetry.  On  the  table  is  a  doubly 
clasped  book  and  hour-glass.  Presumably  this  is  a  volume  of 
poetry  which  in  time  will  be  unclasped.  The  three  persons 
seated  at  the  table  whom  he  is  addressing  represent  the  three 
orders,  the  prince,  the  lord,  and  the  commoner,  whose  atten- 
tion he  is  calling  to  the  genius  of  Poetry. 

Referring  to  the  title-page  of  Bacon's  "  Henry  the  Seventh," 
we  see,  standing  upon  a  globe,  the  figure  of  Nemesis,  her  left 
hand  on  the  wheel  of  fortune,  in  her  pleasant  aspect  of  the  dis- 
penser of  equal  justice,  holding  in  her  right  hand  a  jar  of  salt 

423 


ji^^wii* 

fa^o^U^ 

S^^^Hi 

^0C9^i^Hf 

^o^ytA-u 

foc>tt/-c/ 

)  et^a^kf 

f^Cf-A  ^ii 

NOTES  TO  PLATO 
From  Montaigne's  Essays,  Bordeaux  copy,  1588. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


and  a  bitless  bridle.^  On  the  left  of  the  page,  at  the  right  of 
Nemesis,  stands  a  Rosicrucian  philosopher,  as  the  roses  on 
his  shoes  indicate,  and  behind  him  a  knight  in  armor,  and  on 
the  left  an  actor,  as  his  buskins  and  Roman  helmet  show,  with 
the  left  arm  extended  toward  the  globe,  and  his  right  grasping 
the  shaft  of  a  spear,  his  sword  on  the  wrong  side  and  entangling 
his  legs,  and  the  single  spur  on  his  left  heel. 

To  the  extreme  right  is  the  same  philosopher  holding  the 
spear  shaft  strongly  with  both  hands,  its  end  raised  to 
the  wheel  of  fortune,  the  confusing  whirl  of  which  it  has 
arrested  for  us  to  examine,  and  we  see  upon  it  the  "mirror," 
which  he  held  "up  to  nature,"  "the  rod  for  the  back  of 
fools";  the  "basin"  for  "guilty  blood"  in  "Andronicus"; 
"the  fooFs  bauble"  the  grave-digger's  "dirty  shovel"  in 
_  "Hamlet";  "the  Gentle- 

man's Hat,"  his  own;  the 
"peer's  coronet;"  the 
royal  crown  of  England, 
and  the  "imperial  crown 
of  Henry  Seventh,"  the 
subject  of  Bacon's  his- 
tory. The  bitless  bridle, 
the  broken  spear,  the  staff 
in  his  own  possession  are 
prophetic,  and  easy  of  in- 
terpretation. 

It  may  be  illuminating 
to  note  that  Nemesis  is 
also  the  goddess  of  retri- 
bution, and  under  this  as- 
pect is  represented  with  a 
forbidding  face,  and  hold- 
ing a  bitted  bridle. 
The  next  title-page  is  that  of  Bacon's  "Augmentis  Scien- 

^  Baudoin's  Emblems,  1638. 

424 


IrTbaconis 

De  I 

l^nglias  Cancellarii 
at. 

LVGMEN"TIS 

iSClENTlAHVM 

Xib.ix. 


Apud  li'rancifcutn  3Ioiairdum. 
'SX  Adrianuxn  Wijngaerde.  ^;rm^  ]6^^^ 


SYMBOLISM 

tiarum,"  published  in  1645  in  Holland.  This  pictorial  page 
did  not  appear  in  England,  which  is  significant  of  Bacon's 
intention,  known  to  Rawley,  of  concealing  from  his  country- 
men his  less  appreciated  work  "until  that  far  off  rosy  day" 
which  should  dawn  for  their  acceptance,  a  day  prophetically 
far  off,  but  doubtless  far  more  remote  than  he  imagined.  In 
this  cryptic  design,  the  same  figure  of  the  philosopher,  whom 
we  see  on  the  former  title-pages,  is  seated  before  the  inacces- 
sible face  of  a  cliff  upon  which  is  a  mortuary  temple.  His  right 
hand  rests  upon  the  upper  of  two  large  folios,  while  with  his 
left  he  is  boosting  up  the  cliff  Tragaedus,  the  goat-clad  satyr.  ^ 
In  the  left  hand  of  the  Satyr  of  Tragedy  is  a  book  closed  and 
clasped,  while  his  harsh  face  is  turned  toward  Bacon :  — 

This  man's  brow  like  to  a  titled  leaf^ 
Foretells  the  nature  of  a  tragic  volume. 

2  Henry  IF,  i,  i. 

These  lines  sufficiently  describe  the  nature  of  the  volume 
he  holds,  and  what  is  to  be  done  with  it  ?  The  Satyr  of  Trag- 
edy is  reluctantly  depositing  the  precious  book  in  this  inhos- 
pitable aerie,  only  to  be  discovered  when  Nemesis  shall  make 
her  just  award. 

And  now  our  final  title-page,  in  some  respects  the  most  inter- 
esting of  all,  which  is  from  the  Collected  Works  attributed  to 
Edmund  Spenser,  published  in  London  in  161 1.  It  is  an  elab- 
orate decoration  embodying  many  of  the  features  with  which 
we  are  familiar  in  the  head-  and  tail-pieces  already  treated, 
the  scroll,  the  little  birds,  and  other  devices,  together  with  the 
masks  of  Tragedy  and  Comedy,  similar  to  those  to  which  at- 
tention has  already  been  called.  What  makes  this  title-page, 
however,  of  especial  importance  is,  that  it  embodies  what 
may  properly  be  called  the  tragedy  of  Bacon.  And  now  to 
describe  it. 

On  the  left  is  the  figure  of  Leicester  with  the  bear  and  staff, 
which  are  sufficient  to  identify  him,  and  opposite  is  Elizabeth 

^  Century  Dictionary,  in  loco. 

42s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

with  the  Lion  rampant,  and  the  scepter  at  her  side,  sus- 
pended by  a  chain,  which,  quite  as  unmistakably,  identify 
her.  These  figures  represent  "supporters,"  in  heraldic  par- 
lance, and  sustain  at  the  height  of  their  heads,  between  them, 
a  shield  bearing  the  arms  of  Bacon,  a  boar.  The  boar  is  rep- 
resented in  leash,  the  end  toward  the  Queen,  to  represent  her 
connection  with  his  destiny. 

In  an  oval  at  the  bottom  we  again  see  the  boar,  now  regard- 
ing curiously,  but  almost  defiantly,  a  rosebush  in  full  flower, 
the  Tudor  emblem  inherited  by  Elizabeth  from  the  House  of 
York.  Encircling  it  is  a  scroll  with  the  legend,  "Non  Tibi 
Spiro,''  "/  smell  not  thee''  No,  the  sweetness  of  this  royal 
emblem,  heightened  by  the  ardent  hope  of  future  possession, 
had  been  swept  away  forever,  like  the  first  scent  of  spring 
blooms  by  a  belated  storm.  Leicester  had  been  dead  twenty- 
three  years,  and  Elizabeth  eight.  In  their  day  this  revealing 
title-page  would  have  been  an  unsafe  venture,  but  now  it 
passed  as  any  merely  pictured  page  would  pass,  hintless  of 
veiled  meaning;  or,  if  it  excited  comment,  it  was  but  a  pretty 
compliment  to  past  greatness,  and  the  boar,  shrinking  from 
the  sweet-scented,  but  thorny  rose,  an  amusing  conceit.  These 
title-pages,  however,  should  be  suflficient  proof,  to  any  un- 
prejudiced mind,  of  Bacon's  authorship,  both  of  the  "Shake- 
speare" Works  and  those  contained  in  the  work,  the  title-page 
of  which  we  have  last  considered ;  and,  moreover,  that  this 
title-page  fully  confirms  what  he  has  told  us  in  cipher,  that  he 
was  one  of  the  children  of  Elizabeth  and  Leicester,  whose 
existence  was  so  often  asserted  in  the  correspondence  of  min- 
isters of  foreign  courts,  and  contemporary  annals. 

ANAGRAMS 

The  making  of  anagrams  was  also  an  art  much  practiced  by 
mediaeval  scholars.  Even  Queen  Elizabeth,  says  Green,  when 
discussing  the  affectation  of  her  literary  style,  cultivated  a 
"taste  for  anagrams  and  puerilities."   So  esteemed  were  they 

426 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

at  the  French  Court  that  Louis  XIII  maintained  a  professional 
anagrammatist  at  an  annual  salary  of  twelve  thousand  livres. 

Anagrams  seem  to  have  long  occupied  a  place  in  the  literary 
life  of  Europe.  Roger  Bacon,  the  thirteenth-century  scholar 
and  scientific  student,  to  protect  himself  from  prying  en- 
emies, concealed  his  formula  for  an  explosive  in  this  ingeni- 
ous anagram:  "Sed  tamen  salis  petrae  luru  mope  can  ubre  tt 
sulphuris,  et  sic  facies  tonitrum  et  coruscationem,  si  scias 
artificium." 

The  italics  are  unmeaning  in  their  present  form,  but  when 
properly  combined  make  carbonum  pulvere^  or  powdered  char- 
coal, and  are  translated  thus,  "  But  nevertheless,  take  of  salt- 
petre, with  powdered  charcoal  and  sulphur,  and  then  you  will 
make  thunder  and  lightning,  if  you  know  the  mode  of  prepar- 
ing them."  ^ 

In  the  earliest  edition  of  his  "Remains"  the  staid  old 
Camden  concealed  his  name  in  these  anagrams,  "Dum  ilia 
evincam,"  and  "Nil  malum  cui  Dea." 

Francis  Bacon,  in  common  with  his  contemporaries,  seems 
to  have  been  mildly  interested  in  anagrams.  Several  have 
been  pointed  out,  and  doubtless  many  more  will  be  found  by 
ingenious  minds.  How  far  anagrams  can  be  relied  upon  is 
questionable.  That  many  exist  that  have  not  been  discovered 
is  no  doubt  true.  The  crucial  question  is.  Does  the  word  or 
sentence  when  anagrammatized  contain  more  than  one  perfect 
anagram  .^  If  it  does,  our  work  becomes  unsatisfactory  unless 
we  have  some  convincing  proof  of  its  validity.  We  have  re- 
marked upon  the  uncertain  character  of  the  anagram  in  the 
well-known  case  of  that  nerve-racking  word,  Honortficabili- 
tudinitatibus,  in  "Love's  Labours  Lost."  It  is,  of  course,  pos- 
sible that  it  was  used  anagrammatically  by  Bacon,  but  it  has 
furnished  several  anagrams  quite  equal  to  that  attributed  to 
him,  which  renders  his  use  of  it  as  an  anagram  improbable. 
Having  abundant  evidence  in  favor  of  our  client,  we  should 

^  Ency.  Brit.,  8th  ed.,  art.  "Gunpowder." 
428 


SYMBOLISM 

not  be  too  ready  to  welcome  extraneous  evidence,  especially  in 
this  direction. 

The  futility  of  anagrams  is  especially  seen  in  the  curious 
Latin  word  Honorificabilitudino  found  on  the  title-page  of 
Bacon's  Northumberland  Manuscript,  and  Honorificabili- 
tudinitatibus,  in  "Love's  Labours  Lost."  The  almost  unpro- 
nounceable word  in  the  play  would  have  little  meaning  for 
the  rude  frequenters  of  the  Blackfriars  or  Globe,  and  for  its 
few  more  refined  patrons  it  would  be  a  somewhat  offensive 
piece  of  pleasantry.  Why  it  should  be  thrust  into  the  play 
has  naturally  excited  wonder.  Mr.  Bowditch  discussed  the 
shorter  word  in  treating  of  the  Northumberland  Manuscript, 
and  Dr.  Piatt  discovered  this  anagram  in  it:  "Initio  hi  ludi 
Fr.  Bacone"  (These  plays  originated  with  Fr.  Bacon).  Mr. 
Lawrence  evolved  this  from  the  longer  word:  "Hi  Ludi  F. 
Baconis  nati  tuiti  orbi"  (These  plays  F.  Bacon's  offspring  are 
preserved  for  the  world).  From  a  word  containing  twenty- 
seven  letters  many  anagrams  may  be  constructed. 

The  history  of  this  cabalistic  word  is  curious.  It  is  found  in 
"The  Complaynt  of  Scotland,"  published  at  St.  Andrews  in 
1548.  It  is  still  older  than  this,  having  been  used  in  a  charter 
of  1 187,  De  Gestis  Henrici  VII,  and  still  earlier  in  a  Latin 
Dictionary,  entitled  Magnae  Derivationes,  according  to  the 
Catholicon  of  Giovanni  da  Genova  printed  about  1500. 
George  Stronach  says  that  it  enshrines  this  anagram:  "Ubi 
Italicus  ibi  Danti  honor  fit"  (Where  there  is  an  Italian,  there 
honor  is  paid  to  Dante). 

That  the  author  of  "Love's  Labours  Lost"  used  the  word 
for  a  purpose  is  hardly  to  be  questioned,  though  we  doubt 
that  he  used  it  anagrammatically.  The  literary  idiosyncracies 
of  our  ancestors  who  used  the  names  of  contemporaries  upon 
their  title-pages,  misdated  books,  and  even  printed  differ- 
ent editions  of  the  same  book  under  different  names,  ^  are 

^  Cf.  The  Historie  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  Mary  Stuart,  etc.  Ed.  1624,  by 
Wil.  Stranguage.    Ibid.,  ed.  1636,  W.  Udall. 

429 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

perplexing.  Such  books  still  survive,  and  their  ghostly  authors 
grin  at  us  behind  their  false  masks  so  nicely  adjusted  to  them 
by  the  editors  of  biographical  dictionaries. 

ACROSTICS 

With  acrostics  we  have  surer  ground,  as  they  have  to  be 
arranged  according  to  method.  Etymologically  the  word 
signifies  "at  the  end  of  a  row"  or  "line,"  which  describes  the 
most  familiar  form  of  an  acrostic,  that  in  which  the  initial 
letters  at  the  beginning  of  each  line,  when  taken  successively, 
form  one  or  more  words.  Probably  Addison's  declaration  that 
he  could  not  decide  who  was  the  greater  blockhead,  the  maker 
of  anagrams  or  of  acrostics,  fairly  describes  the  attitude  of  the 
modern  mind  toward  them ;  yet  the  acrostic,  like  the  anagram, 
has  a  long  history.  It  is  found  in  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  au- 
thors, long  before  the  Christian  era ;  indeed,  as  we  all  know, 
the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth  psalm  exhibits  one  form  of 
acrostic,  the  alphabetical.  This  pagan  toy  amused  the  early 
Christians,  and  we  find  Lactantius  and  Eusebius  exploiting 
verses,  the  initial  letters  of  which  form  the  words,  "Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour."  This  pious  example  was 
welcomed  in  mediaeval  cloisters,  and  helped  to  relieve  the 
routine  of  monkish  life.  We  see,  then,  that  the  acrostic,  from 
an  early  period,  has  possessed  a  charm  for  certain  minds,  and 
when  Sir  John  Davis  wrote  his  twenty-six  hymns  to  Astraea, 
each  embodying  the  words,  "Elizabeth  Regina,"  he  had  be- 
hind him  an  illustrious  line  of  lovers  of  this  antique  bau- 
ble,—  Hugo  Grotius;  Gottfried  of  Strasburg;  Rudolph  of 
Ems;  Boccaccio;  and  some  of  the  chief  poets  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance. 

Even  in  our  own  day  the  acrostic  survives.  It  so  much 
pleased  Edgar  Allan  Poe  that  he  fashioned  a  poem  containing 
two  names,  so  arranged  as  to  run  diagonally  through  it.  Quite 
recently  Mr.  Carleton  Brown  has  published  a  volume  of  poems 
of  two  of  the  minor  poets  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  Sir  John  Salus- 

430 


SYMBOLISM 

bury  and  Robert  Chester,  which  contain  a  variety  of  curious 

acrostics.  This  is  one :  — 

Poesie  III 

Tormented  heart  in  thrall,  Yea  thrall  to  loue, 
Respecting  will,  Heart-breaking  gaine  doth  grow, 
Euer  Dolobelia,  Time  so  will  proue, 
Binding  distress,  O  gem  wilt  thou  allowe. 
This  fortune  my  will,  Repose-lesse  of  ease, 
Vnlesse  thou  Leda,  Oucr-spread  my  heart, 
Cutting  all  my  ruth,  dayne  Disdaine  to  cease, 
I  yeilde  to  fate,  and  welcome  endles  Smart. 

Mr.  Brown  says,^  "In  printing  these  poems  herewith  I  have 
displayed  the  acrostic  letters  in  bold-face  type  lest  some  of 
them  should  elude  the  reader's  eye,"  and  of  this  poem  in  par- 
ticular he  says  that  we  find  in  it  "the  three  names  Dorothy 
Cutbert  halsall,  the  last  being  formed  of  the  terminal  letters 
immediately  preceding  the  caesura,"  or  comma.  That  the 
reader  may  be  relieved  from  wasting  time  over  this  vexatious 
acrostic,  we  reproduce  it  as  Mr.  Brown  does. 

To  get  the  name  we  begin  on  the  capital  Z),  the  fifteenth 
letter  from  the  end  of  the  line  next  to  the  last,  and  read  up- 
wards on  the  capitals  to  the  Y  in  "Yea."  This  yields  "Doro- 
thy." We  then  read  upward  from  the  line  next  to  the  last  on 
the  first  initial  capitals  to  T  of  the  first  line,  which  yields  "  Cut- 
bert"; then  we  read  upward  again,  starting  with  the  h  in  the 
word  "ruth,"  and  taking  the  letter  preceding  the  comma  in 
each  line  to  the  last  /  in  the  word  "thrall."  This  yields  "hal- 
sall," and  we  then  have  the  full  name  "Dorothy  Cutbert 
halsall,"  the  name  of  Sir  John's  sister-in-law,  the  wife  of 
Cuthbert  Halsall,  and  the  last  line  is  signed  "J.  S,"  John 
Salusbury. 

Poe  gives  this  acrostic  which  contains  the  name  "Sarah 
Anna  Lewis."  Begin  to  read  on  the  first  letter  of  the  first  line ; 
the  second  letter  on  the  second  line,  the  third  letter  on  the 

*  Carleton  Brown,  Bryn  Maivr  College^  Monographs^  vol.  xiv.  Bryn  Mawr, 
1913. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

third  line,  and  so  on  until  you  reach  the  letter  s  at  the  end  of 
the  word  "names"  in  the  last  line:  — 

An  Enigma 

"Seldom  we  find,"  says  Solomon  Don  Dunce, 
"Half  an  idea  in  the  profoundest  sonnet. 

Through  all  the  flimsy  things  we  see  at  once 
As  easily  as  through  a  Naples  bonnet  — 
Trash  of  all  trash!  —  how  can  a  lady  don  it? 

Yet  heavier  far  than  your  Petrarchan  stuff  — 

Owl-downy  nonsense  that  the  faintest  puff 
Twirls  into  trunk-paper  the  while  you  con  it." 

And,  veritably,  Sol  is  right  enough. 

The  general  tuckermanities  are  arrant 

Bubbles  —  ephemeral  and  so  transparent  — 
But  this  is,  now  —  you  may  depend  upon  it  — 

Stable,  opaque,  immortal  —  all  by  dint 

Of  the  dear  names  that  lie  concealed  within 't.^ 

We  give  these  examples  simply  to  illustrate  the  complex 
character  of  some  acrostics,  and  as  an  introduction  to  the 
question  of  Bacon's  use  of  acrostics.  This  question  is  ably 
treated  in  the  elaborate  work  on  Acrostics  of  Mr.  William 
Stone  Booth.  The  following  affords  both  an  explanation  of 
principle  and  an  illustration  of  method. ^ 

^  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  Works,  vol.  iii,  p.  24,  quoted  by  William  Stone  Booth, 
Some  Acrostic  Signatures  of  Francis  Bacon,  p.  74.    Boston,  1909. 

*  For  criticism  of  method  see  Frank  A.  Kendall,  William  Shakespeare  and 
his  Three  Friends,  Boston,  191 1.  Also  The  Nation.  January  20,  February  10, 
191a 


SYMBOLISM 

For  our  purposes  it  may  be  very  briefly  stated  that  the 
thesis  of  W.  S.  Booth  is  that  in  a  series  of  corresponding 
places  Hke  that  of  preface,  conclusion;  first  or  last  stanza; 
prologue  or  epilogue,  in  a  given  set  of  books  suspected  to 
have  been  written  by  a  person  other  than  him  whose  name 
is  on  the  title-page,  it  is  very  highly  improbable  that  the 
types  will  chance  to  fall  so  that  they  disclose  the  name  of 
the  suspected  man  by  the  application  of  any  definite,  sys- 
tematic method  of  using  the  consecutive  letters  or  pages 
taken  in  the  given  set  of  books  under  discussion. 

As  an  instance  of  this  principle,  suppose  that  this  page 
is  the  first  page  of  a  book  by  one  "Jones"  and  which 
is  for  various  reasons  suspected  to  have  been  written  by 
Francis  Bacon;  and  suppose  that  Jones  had  written  twenty 
other  books.  How  probable  is  it  that  in  the  first  page  of, 
say,  even  five  of  these  twenty  books  by  Jones,  we  could 
take  the  accidental  fall  of  the  types  on  the  page  (that  is 
the  fall  irrespective  of  their  meaning),  and  spell  Francis 
Bacon  from  one  end  of  the  string  of  types  to  the  other, 
beginning  from  the  letter  at  either  of  the  four  corners. 
It  is  so  ^Tzlikely,  that  if  the  types  are  found  to  disclose 
the  suspected  name  by  the  application  of  this  method,  in 
a  series  of  corresponding  places  in  the  set  of  books  above 
mentioned,  it  is  so  because  the  typography  has  been 
intentionally  arranged  to  do  so. 

Authorship  is  not  necessarily  proved  by  the  demonstration 
of  intention  in  the  rigging  of  the  types.  A  signature  on  a 
draft  is  not  necessarily  authentic  because  it  is  accepted  by 
a  bank  oflScial.  But  the  systematic  use  of  an  intentional 
typographical  trick  concealing  the  name  of  the  same  man  in 
his  own  work  as  well  as  in  that  of  his  supposed  alter-ego 
would  put  beyond  the  peradventure  of  a  reasonable  doubt  the 
proof  that  the  author  himself  had  played  with  his  own  nam^e. 


433 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Note  that  the  first  initial  letter  of  the  foregoing  is  F;  and 
that  the  initial  letter  at  the  end  of  the  string  of  types  is  the 
initial  N  of  the  word  "name." 

Begin  to  spell  at  the  initial  F,  take  the  next  initial  R,  then 
the  next  initial  A,  and  so  on,  taking  the  next  letter  as  it  comes 
next  in  the  string  of  initial  letters,  whether  capital  or  not,  and 
spelling  FRANCIS  BACON.  You  will  find  yourself  at  the 
end  of  the  string  and  on  the  initial  N,  above  alluded  to. 

How  likely  is  the  name  of  Francis  Bacon  to  appear  on  the 
first  page  of  a  series  of  epistles  written  by  the  same  man  by  the 
application  of  the  above  definite  method  of  spelling  between 
the  ends  of  strings  of  type  which  occupy  similar  and  corre- 
sponding places,  unless  the  name  has  been  "rigged"  into  the 
page  intentionally.^  It  is  of  course  possible,  but  very  highly 
improbable.  1 

Rawley  says  that  Bacon  marked  all  the  plays.  In  the  scene 
in  the  "Tempest"  where  Prospero  is  about  to  reveal  to 
Miranda  the  secret  of  her  birth,  appears  this  acrostic :  — 

Pros.  Sit  downe. 

For  thou  must  now  know  farther. 

Mira.  You  have  often 
Begun  to  tell  me  what  I  am,  but  stopt 
And  left  me  to  a  bootless  Inquisition, 
Concluding,  stay:  not  yet. 

I,  II. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  acrostics  is  found  at  the  begin- 
ning of  "Lucrece,"  first  edition  of  1594:  — 

FRom  the  besieged  Ardea  all  in  post, 
Borne  by  the  trustlesse  wings  of  false  desire, 
Lust  breathed  Tarquin,  leaves  the  Roman  host, 
And  to  Colatium  beares  the  lightlesse  fire, 
Which  in  pale  embers  hid,  lurkes  to  aspire, 
And  girdle  with  embracing  flames,  the  wast 
Of  Colantines  fair  love,  Lucrece  the  chast. 

Here  we  have  the  author  revealed  in  a  monogram  equivalent 
to  FR,  B.  LAW,  AO-ALPHA  and  OMEGA,  or  beginning  and 

^  Mr.  W.  S.  Booth  has  kindly  furnished  me  with  this  example. 

434 


SYMBOLISM 

end.  This  cannot  be  ascribed  to  chance.  It  is  plainer  than  most 
similar  acrostic  signatures  of  ancient  authors. 

The  fifteenth  stanza  of  "Lucrece"  unmistakably  reveals 
Bacon.  We  have  already  spoken  of  his  habit  of  writing  upon 
the  margins  of  his  books,  a  habit  then  so  unusual  as  to  be  vir- 
tually unknown.  The  lines  to  which  we  particularly  request 
attention,  since  they  furnish  a  psychological  clue  to  the  au- 
thorship of  the  poem,  quite  as  important  as  the  acrostic  in  its 
first  stanza,  which  cannot  be  ignored,  are  these :  — 

But  she  that  never  copt  .with  stranger  eyes, 
Could  pick  no  meaning  from  their  parling  looks,. 
Nor  read  the  subtle  shining  secrecies 
Writ  in  the  glassy  margents  of  such  books, 

She  toucht  no  unknown  baits,  nor  feared  no  hooks, 
Nor  could  she  moralize  his  wanton  sight, 
More  than  his  eyes  were  opened  to  the  light. 

The  fixed  habit  of  Bacon,  alluded  to  above,  furnished  him 
with  a  constant  motive  to  its  exercise,  and  it  was  but  natural, 
that  when  the  conception  of  the  hidden  secrecies  in  the  eyes  of 
the  chaste  Lucrece  dawned  upon  him,  he  should  associate  it 
with  the  secrecies  "writ "  on  the  margins  of  his  book.  The  con- 
ception of  this  simile  could  only  occur  to  one  familiar  with  the 
practice  of  such  writing,  and  this  could  not  possibly  have  been 
the  actor.  To  remove  all  doubt,  however,  the  author  has 
formed  from  the  initial  letters  of  this  stanza,  as  in  the  former 
instance,  an  acrostic  B  C  N  W  Sh  N  M,  leaving  only  the 
vowels  to  be  added  to  make  "Bacon,  W.  Sh.  Name." 

This  is  not  coincidence  or  chance.  The  care  bestowed  upon 
initial  and  terminal  words  evidence  this.  Note  the  beginnings 
of  lines  939-58  and  endings  of  lines  127-31,  428-34,  in  the 
sonnets  for  instance.  This  method  of  leaving  vowels  to  be 
supplied  in  a  verbal  puzzle  is  no  doubt  familiar  to  the  reader 
of  the  youth's  column  of  the  modern  newspaper. 


XII 

ANONYMOUS  AND  PSEUDONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

To  understand  Francis  Bacon  we  must  keep  in  view  the 
dominant  motive  of  his  life.  It  is  embodied  in  these  words : 
"It  is  enough,  son,  that  I  have  sown  unto  Posterity  and  the 
immortal  God."  Truth  has  ever  been  distasteful  to  despotism, 
hence  the  men  of  his  day  who  realized  the  mental  barrenness 
which  prevailed  in  the  world,  and  desired  to  enrich  it,  were 
obliged  to  veil  their  efforts  from  the  jealous  eyes  of  those  in 
power.  This  was  the  reason  why  Rosicrucianism  flourished. 
As  its  single  purpose  was  to  convey  knowledge  to  mankind,  it 
sanctioned  some  methods  which  to  one  who  does  not  realize 
the  dangers  which  encompassed  it  seem  childish.  This  is  one 
of  the  keys  to  the  mystery  which  shrouded  much  of  Bacon's 
life.  That  he  employed  a  large  portion  of  it  in  writing  anony- 
mously, or  under  the  names  of  real  or  fictitious  persons,  cannot 
be  successfully  denied. 

It  is  well  to  keep  in  view  the  important  facts  to  which  we 
have  alluded :  that  Spedding,  Bacon's  indefatigable  biographer, 
could  not  connect  him  with  the  authorship  of  any  important 
published  work  for  fifteen  years  after  his  return  from  the 
French  Court;  that  the  "Advancement  of  Learning,"  pub- 
lished at  the  age  of  forty-four,  was  his  first  published  work  of 
importance,  and  Rawley's  statement  that  he  wrote  the  ma- 
jority of  his  philosophical  works  during  the  five  closing  years 
of  his  Hfe.  It  must  have  been  in  the  earlier  period  of  his  career, 
then,  that  many  of  the  anonymous  plays,  afterwards  pub- 
lished under  the  pen  name, "  Shake-speare,"  or  "  Shakespeare," 
were  written.  It  is  important  that  we  should  give  due  weight 
to  his  reputation  as  a  poet  and  wit,  and  to  the  fact  that  his 
dramatic  talent  was  always  in  requisition  when  a  masque  was 

436 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

wanted  at  Court  or  Gray's  Inn.  He  had  "filled  up  all  num-    . 
bers,"  said  Jonson,  and  many  others  were  quite  as  emphatic  in    \ 
their  praise  of  his  poetic  genius ;  besides,  we  have  this  positive     • 
and  unquestionable  statement  of  Rawley,  "For  very  many 
poems,  and  the  best,  too,  I  withhold  from  publication;  but 
since  he  himself  delighted  not  in  quantity,  no  great  quantity 
have  I  put  forth."  ^ 

Note  also  these  lines: — 

Nor  need  I  number  the  illustrious  works 
Which  he  has  left  behind,  Some  buried  lie; 
But  Rawley,  his  "  Achates  "  ever  true, 
Has  given  leave  that  some  may  see  the  light.^ 

Some  have  endeavored  to  find  a  solution  for  this  in  his 
philosophical  works,  which  others  characterize  as  prosaic  and 
dry. 

Probably  no  man  of  his  age  was  so  indefatigable  a  student  as 
he.  We  cannot  conceive  of  idleness  in  Francis  Bacon.  His 
dominant  purpose  was  authorship,  and,  says  Rawley,  he 
could  not  "take  the  air  abroad  in  his  coach  or  some  other  be- 
fitting recreation,  but  upon  his  first  and  immediate  return, 
would  fall  to  reading  again,  and  so  suffer  no  moment  of  time  to 
slip  from  him  without  some  present  improvement";  and  we 
are  told  how  persistently  he  dictated  his  thoughts  for  tran- 
scription to  the  young  men  in  his  service  whom  he  addressed 
as  sons. 

He  must  have  done  more  literary  work  during  the  best  years 
of  his  life  than  write  bright  letters  or  a  few  masques  for  the 
1      entertainment  of  the  Court,  and  as  playwriting  would  have  |V.. 
, ,  ruined  his  official  prospects,  to  say  nothing  of  sensitiveness  to    '• 
'I  r''public  clamor,  he  of  set  purpose  concealed  his  authorship  as 
others  often  have  done.  This  was  made  easier  by  his  adoption 
of  the  Rosicrucian  doctrine  of  Silence. 

Many  of  the  ephemeral  scribblers  of  the  day  were  dissolute 
and  greedy  for  money  with  which  to  "ruffle  it,"  when  chance 

^  Manes yVerulamiani  (Introduction).  *  Ibid. 

437 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

offered,  with  frequenters  of  the  taverns  and  theaters,  so  that 
it  was  not  difficult  for  a  man  hke  Bacon,  who  was  on  familiar 
terms  with  royalty,  to  borrow  a  name  from  almost  any  of  these 
men.  Others  beside  the  Stratford  actor  did  not  object  to  the 
use  of  their  names  on  occasions.  Collaboration  was  common, 
and  works  were  credited  to  men  who  never  wrote,  or,  in  any 
case,  had  little  to  do  with  them. 

Discoveries,  or  supposed  discoveries,  of  concealed  author- 
ship must  necessarily  encounter  skepticism  and  ridicule.  In- 
deed, when  the  writer  first  read  of  Bacon's  use  of  the  names  of 
several  men  of  his  day,  Greene,  Peele,  Marlowe,  Burton,  and, 
especially,  Spenser,  he  rejected  the  statement  impatiently.  It 
was  a  potion  too  offensive  to  swallow  at  once.  A  careful 
study  of  the  lives  of  these  men  in  connection  with  their  sur- 
roundings, however,  discloses  the  fact  that  the  claim  is  not 
so  absurd  as  it  at  first  sight  appears.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
case  of  one  of  the  most  noted  men  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 

EDMUND    SPENSER 

The  reader  will  be  surprised,  after  studying  his  various  biog- 
raphies, to  find,  upon  stripping  them  of  fanciful  trappings,  not 
warranted  by  records,  how  obscure  he  was.  Oldys  ventures  an 
attempt  to  settle  his  birthplace  by  a  "tradition"  that  he  was 
born  near  London  Tower  in  East  Smithfield,  but  F.  F.  Spenser, 
of  Lancashire,  offsets  this  tradition  by  a  will,  dated  1687,  of  a 
John  Spenser  of  "Hurstwood  near  Burnley,"  which  he  is  said 
to  have  inherited  from  a  great-grandfather  of  an  Edmund.^ 
Some  later  writers  have  accepted  Hurstwood  as  his  birthplace 
upon  this  shadowy  evidence,  but  Dr.  Grosart  says  the  burial 
registers  of  Burnley  give  the  date  of  burial  of  an  Edmund  of 
Hurstwood  November  9,  1577.  This  Edmund  appears  first  in 
1559.  In  1564,  Edmund  and  Robert  were  parties  in  a  suit  in 
the  Chancery  Court  of  Lancashire.  Another  Edmund,  almost 

^  London  Notes  and  Queries^  vol.  vii,  p.  303 ;  cf.  The  Gentleman^ s  Magazine^ 
August,  1842,  pp.  141  et  seq. 

438 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

certainly  one  of  these  two,  was  buried  in  April,  1587.^  As  two 
Edmunds  are  recorded  as  being  buried  so  near  the  proper  date, 
Grosart  concludes  as  follows :  — 

Edmund  Spenser,  first  of  all  Spensers,  was  most  probably  —  a 
probability  next  door  to  certainty  in  the  light  of  genealogical 
facts  already  given  (?)  —  eldest  son  of  John  Spenser,  who  is  de- 
scribed as  *'free  journeyman"  of  Merchant  Taylor's  Company 
in  1566,  and  "gent"  in  1571. 

With  the  words  of  Stubbs  in  mind,  "Every  parish  must 
have  a  history;  every  parish  has  a  register;  every  person  has  a 
parish,"  the  present  writer  has  searched  the  registers  of  births 
and  marriages  of  London  and  other  parts  of  England  with 
meager  success.  Spenser  names  are  found  in  the  Registers,^ 
but  none  whose  birth  date  coincides  with  that  of  the  Edmund 
in  question.  In  Musgrave's  "Obituaries"  is  the  following: 
Spenser,  "Edm.  poet,  1598,  aet.  86-88,"  with  several  refer- 
ences to  sources.  This  would  make  his  birth  date  either  15 12 
or  15 10,  as  it  is  certain  that  he  died  in  1598.  Evidently  the 
chronicler  was  puzzled  by  discrepancies  which  he  had  noticed 
in  the  date  of  his  death ;  hence  he  tentatively  adopted  both 
dates.  ^ 

In  the  Register  of  St.  Clements  Danes  is  the  record,  "26 
August,  1587,  Florence  Spenser  the  daughter  of  Edmund." 
Collier  claims  her  as  the  daughter  of  the  "poet,"  though  Todd 
positively  asserts  that  he  was  a  bachelor  when  he  married  in 
1594.' 

On  October  i,  1569,  Edmund  Spenser  was  paid  for  bringing 
dispatches  from  Sir  Henry  Norris,  the  Queen's  ambassador  in 
France,  "VI"  XIIP  IIIj^  and  besydes  IX"  prested  to  hym"  by 
Norris.^ 

^  Grosart' s  Family  of  Spenser ^  pp.  xi,  Ixiv. 

2  Cf.  Kensington,  Middlesex;  St.  Marie  Aldermarie;  St.  Dionis,  Back 
Church;  St.  Michael,  Cornhill,  London. 

3  Harleian  Society,  Musgrave's  Obituaries,  vol.  48,  p.  326. 

*  Cf.  J.  Payne  Collier,  F.S.A.,  The  Works  of  Edmund  Spenser.  London,  1862; 
also  cf.  Todd's  Spenser. 

^  Entry  in  the  Office  Book  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Queen's  Chamber. 

439 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Collier  suggests  that  this  Edmund  was  the  father;  but  we 
have  been  assured  that  he  was  a  journeyman  tailor,  and  also 
that  his  name  was  John.  But  why  did  he  think  him  the  poet's 
father?  Evidently  by  the  discrepancies  to  which  we  have 
alluded.  In  addition  to  the  payment  to  the  dispatch-bearer, 
he  had  probably  seen  a  curious  rhymed  epistle  in  Hakluyt, 
under  date  of  1568,  written  from  Russia  by  George  Turber- 
ville,  who  was  attached  to  the  English  Embassy,  beginning  — 

If  I  should  now  forget,  or  not  remember  thee, 

Thou  Spenser  might 'st  a  foule  rebuke,  and  shame  impute  to  me.^ 

This  was  addressed  "To  Spencer,"  but  Anthony  Wood  in  a 
sketch  of  Turberville  identifies  him  in  this  manner.  After 
speaking  of  the  Embassy  of  Thomas  Randolph  to  Russia, 
and  the  appointment  of  Turberville  as  his  secretary,  he 
says :  — 

After  our  author  arrived  at  that  place,  he  did  at  spare  hours 
exercise  his  muse,  and  wrote  Poems  describing  the  Places  and 
Manners  of  the  Country,  An.  1568,  writing  to  Edw.  Duncie,  Edm. 
Spenser,  &c.  at  London.  ^ 

As  we  are  endeavoring  to  find  the  truth  about  the  age  of  the 
Spenser  we  are  in  search  of,  we  should  discard  Wood's  evi- 
dence. He  was  anxious  to  add  to  his  list  of  notable  scholars, 
and,  venturing  a  guess  according  to  historic  custom,  inserted 
"Edm"  before  Turberville's  "Spencer."  We  are  also  enabled 
to  eliminate  a  more  important  piece  of  evidence  relative  to  his 
age. 

In  a  letter  of  July  14,  1580,  to  Leicester,  Sir  William  Pel- 
ham,  Lord  Justice  of  Ireland,  wrote  that  "Spencer,"  who  had 
"long  served  without  any  consideration  or  recompense,  and 
now  grown  into  years,  would  be  glad  to  taste  of  her  Majesty's 
bounty."  ^  This  has  long  been  a  stumbling-block  to  Spenser's 

^  Hakluyt's  Principal  Navigations^  etc.,  vol.  in,  p.  127.   London,  1903. 
2  Anthony  A.  Wood,  M.  A.,  Jthenea,  Oxonienses^  vol.  i,  p.  627;  reprint  of  edi- 
tion, 1 69 1.    London,  18 15. 

^  Calendar  of  the  Carew  Manuscripts. 

440 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

biographers.  Without  doubt,  however,  he  refers  to  James 
Spencer,  appointed  Master  of  Ordnance  in  1569.  We  find  that 
he  was  Pelham's  brother-in-law;  in  fact,  he  alludes  to  him  in 
his  correspondence  as  *'his  brother  Spencer,"  and  as  having 
served  as  Master  of  Ordnance,  which  should  be  sufficient  to 
identify  him.  The  dispatch-bearer,  Edmund,  may  well  have 
been  another  of  the  same  name,  and  we  may  dismiss  both  of 
these  men  from  consideration.  Evidence  that  the  present  date 
on  Spenser's  tomb  in  Westminister  Abbey  is  incorrect  needs  no 
such  support.  If  we  refer  to  the  1679  Folio  we  find  an  engrav- 
ing of  this  tomb  bearing  these  lines :  — 

Such  Is  the  Tombe  the  Noble  Essex  gave 
Great  Spencer's  learned  Reliques,  such  his  grave. 
How  'ere  ill-treated  in  His  Life  he  were 
His  sacred  Bones  Rest  Honourably  Here. 

An  inscription  above  them  is  as  follows :  — 

Heare  lyes  (expecting  the  Second  comminge  of  our  Saviour  Christ 
Jesus)  the  body  of  Edmond  Spencer  the  Prince  of  Poets  in  his 
Tymme  whose  Divine  Spirit  needs  noe  other  witness  then  the 
works  which  he  left  behind  him  he  was  borne  in  London  in  the 
yeare  15 10  and  died  in  the  year  1596.^ 

The  figure  6  we  shall  show  was  a  mistake  of  Stow. 
This  Folio  also  says  that  he  was 

By  his  Parents  liberally  Educated,  and  sent  to  the  University  of 
Cambridge^  where  he  continued  a  student  in  Pembroke-Hall;  till 
upon  the  vacancy  of  a  Fellowship,  he  stood  in  competition  with 
Mr.  Andrews  (afterwards  Lord  Bishop  of  Winchester)  in  which  he 
miscarried;  and  thus  defeated  of  his  hopes,  unable  any  longer  to 
subsist  in  the  College,  he  repaired  to  some  Friends  of  his  in  the 
North,  where  he  staid,  fell  in  love,  and  at  last  (prevailed  upon 
by  the  persuasions  and  importunities  of  other  Friends)  came  to 
London. 

Reference  to  the  roll  of  Bishops  of  Winchester  reveals  to  us 
that  the  Andrews  above  mentioned  was  Lancelot  Andrewes, 

^  The  Works  of  that  Famous  EnglishPoet,  Mr.  Edmund  Spenser.  London,  1679. 
(From  Folio  in  possession  of  author.) 

441 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

born  in  1555;  matriculated  at  Cambridge  1571;  became  B.A. 
1575;  Fellow  1576;  M.A.  1578;  Bishop  of  Winchester,  1618; 
and  died  1626. 

We  give  these  particulars  that  the  reader  may  have  all  at- 
tainable evidence  relative  to  his  age,  as  a  guide  in  forming  a 
correct  judgment,  for  if  the  birth  date  on  his  monument  in 
1679  is  correct,  it  will  hardly  be  contended  that  he  was  the 
author  of  the  "Faerie  Queene."  The  monument  now  in  the 
Abbey,  a  duplicate  of  that  depicted  in  the  Folio,  bears  the 
birth  date,  1553,  and  the  death  date,  1598. 

Whatever  view  we  may  take  of  the  age  of  Spenser,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  birth  date,  15 10,  was  placed  upon  it  at  an 
early  period.  As  no  attempt  has  been  made  by  the  authors  of 
his  numerous  fanciful  lives  to  ascertain  how  early,  let  us  at- 
tempt to  do  so,  and  we  will  begin  with  the  engraving  in  the 
Folio  of  1679,  which  furnishes  an  unquestionable  starting- 
point.  In  doing  so  we  refer  to  Thomas  Dingley,  a  worthy  "  Old 
Mortahty"  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  who  indulged  himself  in 
the  melancholy  amusement  of  haunting  the  grim  shades  of 
ancient  churches,  and  copying  therein  inscriptions  and  mortu- 
ary emblems ;  so  it  happened  that  being  in  Westminster  Abbey 
one  day  he  copied  the  inscription  on  Spenser's  monument,  and 
gives  us  the  correct  death  date,  1598,  as  well  as  the  birth  date, 
1 5  ID,  though,  using  a  coarse  pencil,  or  making  a  slip,  the  last 
figure  looks  about  as  much  like  a  6  as  a  cipher.^  This  correct 
death  date,  copied  so  near  that  of  the  Folio  engraving,  shows 
almost  conclusively  that  the  error  was  that  of  Stow,  whom  the 
editor  of  the  Folio  would  be  likely  to  follow. 

In  speaking  of  the  "tomb"  of  Spenser,  many  writers,  misled 
by  the  inscription  beginning,  "This  is  the  Tomb  the  noble 
Essex  gave,"  have  supposed  it  to  be  the  architectural  struc- 
ture shown  in  the  Folio  engraving,  but  this  is  an  error.  The 
writer,  having  consulted  all  the  authorities  on  the  subject 

^  Thomas  Dingley,  Gent.,  History  from  MarUe,  vol.  11,  p.  139;  pi.  472.  Lon- 
don, 1867. 

442 


'0">Y--/.  </, 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

back  to  the  very  rare  edition  of  '' Reges,  Regincs,  Nohiles''  of 
1606,  in  the  British  Museum,  finds  in  it  the  following  inscrip- 
tion:— 

Edmundus  Spencer  Londinensis,  Anglicorum  Poetarum  nostri 
seculi  facile  princeps,  quod  eius  poemata  faventibus  Musis  & 
victuro  genio  conscripta  comprobant.  Obiit  immatura  morte 
anno  salutis  1598  &  prope  Galfredum  Chaucerum  conditur  qui 
fcelicislme  poesin  Angllcis  Uteris  primus  illustrauit.  In  quern 
hcec  scripta  sunt  Epitaphia. 

Ascertaining  subsequently  that  there  were  tw^o  earlier  edi- 
tions of  this  work  in  the  Museum,  one  of  1603,  and  one  of  1600, 
we  had  them  collated  and  found  the  inscription  the  same  in 
all  of  them,  except  that  in  the  edition  of  1600,  the  name  was 
printed  Edwardus,  and  corrected  after  printing.  This  settles 
the  status  of  the  inscription  which  was  on  the  wall  over  the 
body  of  Spencer,  and  if  the  present  monument  were  removed, 
evidence  of  this  is  likely  to  be  revealed.  We  may  now  ask, 
when  was  the  monument  which  appears  in  the  Folio  of  1679 
erected,  and  by  whom?  Essex  died  on  February  25,  1601,  and 
we  know  from  the  "Reges  Reginae"  that  it  was  not  then 
erected.  Allusions,  however,  to  the  Countess  of  Dorset,  as 
having  had  something  to  do  with  it,  have  been  made  by  several 
writers  without  explanation.  That  it  was  erected  by  her  in 
1620  will  be  seen  from  the  following,  taken  from  the  notebook 
of  Nicholas  Stone,  a  celebrated  architect  and  sculptor  of  such 
memorials.  This  notebook  came  into  the  possession  of  Vertue, 
and  portions  of  it  were  copied  by  Walpole  from  whom  we 
quote :  — 

1620  In  Suffolke  I  made  a  tomb  for  Sir  Edmund  Bacon's  lady, 
and  in  the  same  church  of  Redgrave  I  made  another  for  his  sister 
Lady  (Gawdy)  and  was  very  well  payd  for  them.  And  in  the 
same  place  I  made  two  pictors  of  white  marbell  of  Sir  N.  Bacon 
and  his  Lady,  and  they  were  layd  upon  the  tomb  that  Bernard 
Janson  had  made  there,  for  the  which  two  pictors  I  was  payd  by 
Sir  Edmund  Bacon  200  1. 

I  also  made  a  monument  for  Mr.  Spencer  the  poet,  and  set  it  up 

443 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

at  Westminster,  for  the  which  the  Countess  of  Dorsett  payes 
me  40  1.^ 

This  shows  that  during  nearly  the  entire  year  Stone  was 
working  for  the  Bacons,  and  settles  beyond  question  the  date 
of  the  erection  of  Spenser's  monument  which  appears  in  the 
FoHo  of  1679,  of  which  the  present  one  in  the  Abbey  is  a  coun- 
terpart excepting  the  birth  date.  Francis  Bacon,  then,  must 
have  known  all  about  this  tomb,  if  he  did  not  have  a  hand  in 
erecting  it.  Hoping  to  find  other  evidence  of  an  interesting 
nature,  the  writer  had  the  records  of  the  Abbey  searched,  and 
the  following  is  an  extract  from  the  report  sent  him :  — 

Chapter  Clerk's  Office, 

The  Sanctuary  Westminster  Abbey, 

20th  November,  1913. 

Mr.  Baxter, — 

Dea.r  Sir: 

It  seems  —  more  than  doubtful  whether  there  was  any  inscrip- 
tion or  tablet  over  his  grave  before  1620  when  the  first  Monu- 
ment was  put  up  by  Ann  CIifi"ord,  Countess  of  Dorset,  —  there 
was  no  monument  until  this  date.  The  Monument  then  put  up 
was  made  of  freestone  and  fell  into  such  decay  that  in  1778  it  was 
replaced  by  the  present  Monument  which  is  of  Marble  and  is  a 
copy  of  the  former  one. 

Yours  faithfully, 
George  A.  Radcliffe. 

Mr.  Radcliffe  is,  of  course,  wrong  in  his  opinion  that  there 
was  not  "  any  inscription  or  tablet  befi)re  1620,"  as  we  have 
shown.  This  report  is  accompanied  by  the  following  taken 
from  the  Records :  — 

Chapter  13th,  April,  1778. 

This  day  the  reverend  Dr.  Younge  acquainted  the  Dean  and 
Chapter  that  he  had  received  a  Letter  from  Mr.  Mason,  who  de- 
sired that  leave  might  be  given  for  restoring  the  Monument  of 
Spenser  in  durable  marble  instead  of  the  present  mouldered  Free- 
stone; and  to  correct  the  mistaken  Dates  of  the  Inscription. 

^  Horace  Walpole,  Anecdotes  0/  Painting  in  England^  vol.  i,  p.  241.  London, 
1862. 

444 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

We  are  thus  enabled  to  fix  the  responsibility  upon  William 
Mason,  an  author  of  some  repute  in  his  day,  of  altering  the 
date  upon  Spenser's  monument  without  the  least  historical 
authority  for  so  doing.  Thus,  beyond  question,  the  present 
birth  date  was  placed  upon  it  a  century  after  that  in  the  Folio 
engraving,  and  in  Dingley's  sketch.  As  far  as  we  know,  this 
has  passed  unquestioned  except  that  in  Strype's  Stow  appears 
this:  — 

H.  K.  in  his  Monumenta  Westmonest  fills  up  this  Vacancy  of 
the  Year  of  his  Birth,  and  makes  it  to  be  1510.  But  this  does  not 
well  comport  with  the  Latin  Inscription  that  he  dyed  morte  im- 
matura,  i.e.,  an  immature  Death  and  yet  lived  to  near  90  Years. ^ 

Who  was  H.  K.,  and  when  did  he  commit  this  act?  A  copy 
of  the  book  we  finally  found  in  the  National  Library.  His 
name  was  Henry  Keepe,  a  clergyman,  who  says  of  Spenser's 
works :  "  Pity  it  was  such  true  Poetry  should  not  have  been 
employed  in  as  true  a  subject."  The  date  of  the  book  is  1683, 
and  the  pious  author  assures  us  that  he  was  careful  to  copy 
the  inscriptions  as  he  found  them,  leaving  the  responsibility 
of  errors  to  those  who  made  them.  This  ought  to  be  sufficient 
to  discredit  Stow,  if  we  did  not  know  that  the  date  was  there 
long  before  Keepe  wrote  the  following:  "Hard  by  the  little 
East  door,  is  a  decayed  Tomb  of  grey  Marble,  very  much 
defaced,  and  nothing  of  the  ancient  Inscription  remaining, 
which  was  in  Latine,  but  of  late  there  is  another";  and  he 
gives  us  the  one  we  find  in  the  1679  engraving,  namely,  1510. 

There  was,  then,  a  "Latine"  inscription,  and  Keepe  had 
read  it  in  one  of  Camden's  or  Stow's  histories.  It  is  certain  that 
Strype,  the  editor  of  the  "  Survey,"  wrote  loosely,  for  when  he 
edited  this  edition  of  Stow  the  date  was  there,  and  Keepe 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it  whatever.  The  fact  is  evident  that 
Strype,  finding  the  date  in  Keepe,  and  being  unacquainted 
with  the  engraving  in  the  Folio,  but  familiar  with  Stow's 

^  Strype,  Stozv^s  Survey  of  London  and  Westminster,  yo\.  ii,  p.  32.  London, 
1720. 

445 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

earlier  work,  inferred  that  Keepe  was  responsible  for  the  date 
he  found  in  his  book,  and  to  make  a  sharp  point  against  him 
was  equally  hasty  in  making  "morte  immatura"  mean  that 
he  died  at  an  immature  age.  This  could  not  be  truly  said  even 
of  the  Spenser  who  entered  the  Merchant  Tailor's  School  in 
1569.  What  was  really  meant  was  that  his  death  was  untimely, 
as  it  certainly  was,  for  he  was  the  bearer  of  important  news  to 
the  Government  in  a  grave  crisis  of  affairs,  and  his  needy 
family  was  suddenly  deprived  of  his  support. 

We  have  now  settled  two  important  facts,  namely,  that 
prior  to  1620  there  was  only  a  Latin  inscription  over  the  burial- 
place  of  Spenser,  and  that  from  1679  to  1778  there  was  a  birth 
date  of  1 5 10.  The  pregnant  question  is.  Was  this  date  placed 
on  the  monument  by  Nicholas  Stone  in  1620,  or  by  some  one 
between  that  date  and  1679?  There  were  three  editions  of 
Stow  printed  before  his  death  in  1604,  and  several  after;  one 
in  161 8,  which  has  the  same  Latin  inscription  found  in  the  edi- 
tion of  1600,  and  one  in  1633.  The  latter  has  the  inscription 
shown  in  the  Folio  of  1679,  except  the  birth  date,  which  is 

blank:  "He  was  borne  in  London  in  the  yeere and  died 

in  the  yeere  1596."  This  raises  several  queries.  Did  the  editor 
of  the  1633  Stow  attempt  to  copy  the  dates  at  an  hour  when 
the  inscription  was  in  obscurity,  and  being  uncertain  left  the 
birth  date  blank  in  his  notes  ^  He  certainly  got  the  death  date 
wrong,  which  makes  this  seem  probable,  for  Dingley,  who  was 
most  painstaking,  and  an  expert  in  such  work,  got  it  right ;  or 
was  the  birth  date  put  on  the  monument  between  1633  and 
the  time  when  Dingley  copied  it,  presumably  a  year  or  two  be- 
fore 1679  ?  No  one  could  have  filled  the  blank  without  permis- 
sion from  the  Abbey  authorities,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
Abbey  records  to  show  that  such  permission  was  requested  or 
granted.  That  the  author  of  the  brief  sketch  of  Spenser's  life 
in  the  Folio  of  1679  got  his  erroneous  death  date  from  Stow 
seems  probable,  and  quite  as  improbable  that  he  got  his  birth 
date  from  Dingley's  manuscript,  which  was  not  in  print  until 

446 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

long  after.  Where,  then,  did  he  get  it  ?  He  might  have  referred 
to  Stow's  work,  and  accepted  the  death  date,  and  noticing  the 
blank  birth  date  have  obtained  it  by  personal  inspection,  with- 
out thinking  it  necessary  to  verify  the  death  date.  That  the 
birth  and  death  dates  were  put  on  the  monument  when  Nich- 
olas Stone  erected  it  in  1620  seems  a  reasonable  conclusion.  If 
so,  and  it  was  wrong,  many  who  knew  Spenser  should  have  re- 
marked it.  Ben  Jonson  did  not  die  until  1637,  and  Bacon  un- 
til 1626.  Jonson  must  have  been  especially  interested  in  the 
Abbey,  for  he  had  secured  a  place  there.  He  had  said  to 
the  King  that  he  wanted  two  feet  square  of  land,  and  when 
asked  where  he  wanted  it,  replied,  laughingly,  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  King  good-naturedly  granted  his  request,  and  he 
was  buried  standing,  as  was  proved  some  years  ago,  when  a 
burial  was  made  adjoining  his  grave. 

We  have  exhausted  all  known  methods  to  clear  from  doubt 
the  question  of  Spenser's  birth  date.  If  it  were  not  placed  upon 
the  monument  when  it  was  erected  in  1620,  we  trust  that  evi- 
dence may  yet  be  brought  forth  to  show  it.  This  will  not  be 
done,  however,  by  pursuing  the  easy  though  alluring  methods 
of  the  past.  Thus  far  the  same  fashion  of  building  up  Spenser's 
life  as  that  employed  by  the  biographers  of  the  Stratford 
actor  has  been  resorted  to.  A  few,  a  very  few,  incidents  have 
been  taken  as  a  foundation,  and  upon  these  has  been  reared 
an  airy  fabric  of  surmises  which,  to  uncritical  readers,  looks 
substantial  enough,  but  when  critically  examined  is  found  to 
be  an  illusion. 

At  this  point  let  us  inquire  how  his  father's  name  and  birth- 
place were  determined.  Among  the  many  of  the  name  then 
living  in  England  this  record  was  found,  "  Edmund  Spenser 
Scoller  of  the  M'chant,  Tayler,  Schoole,  1569,"  and  the 
inference  was  made  that  his  father  was  a  tailor.  Search  was 
made  for  a  man  of  that  profession,  and  one  was  found  named 
John.  Without  the  least  proof  that  this  man  was  related  to 
this  Edmund,  —  for  it  should  be  remembered  that  children  of 

447 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

fathers  not  of  the  tailor's  profession  were  admitted  to  this 
school,  —  John,  the  tailor,  was  made  to  head  his  genealogy, 
and  as  he  practiced  his  humble  calling  in  London,  this  city  was, 
of  course,  assumed  to  be  his  birthplace,  though  it  might  as 
well  have  been  any  other  place  in  the  realm.  To  buttress  this 
assumption  resort  was  had  to  the  poems,  and  these  lines  were 
found  in  the  "Prothalamion":  — 

At  length  they  all  to  merry  London  came 
To  mery  London,  my  most  kyndly  Nurse 
That  to  me  gave  this  Life's  first  native  sourse 
Though  from  another  place  I  take  my  name, 
An  house  of  ancient  fame.^ 

Quite  as  difficult  a  problem  was  his  age,  as  we  have  already 
seen.  Mason  saw  this,  and,  being  a  lover  of  the  Spenser  poems, 
cast  about  to  solve  it.  To  leave  it  as  it  was  might  ultimately 
invalidate  the  Irish  secretary's  title  to  the  "Faerie  Queene." 
In  his  reading  he  found  these  lines  in  the  "Amoretti":  — 

since  the  winged  God  his  planet  cleare 
begun  in  me  to  move,  one  year  is  spent: 
the  which  doth  longer  unto  me  appeare, 
than  al  those  fortie  which  my  life  outwent.^ 

Mason  assumed  that  the  date  of  the  composition  of  these 
lines  was  1594,  and  adding  one  year  to  the  "fortie'*  found  in 
them,  subtracted  the  sum  from  that  date,  which  gave  him  the 
convenient  date  of  1553.  This  date  he  substituted  for  the 
ancient  date  on  the  monument.  Was  he  right  in  so  doing.? 
Referring  to  the  sonnet  the  editor  of  the  Cambridge  edition  of 
the  poems  remarks  that  "al  those  fourty"  is  a  phrase  some- 
what too  convenient  to  inspire  confidence.^  In  assuming  these 
lines  to  be  personal.  Mason  after  all  does  not  settle  the  ques- 
tion of  the  birth  date.  Dr.  Grosart,  who  has  given  us  our  best 
biography  of  him,  —  if  it  is  proper  to  dignify  work  so  largely 
constructed  of  surmises  by  this  title,  —  takes  this  humorous 

^  Folio  161 1,  8th  stanza.  2  polIo  161 1,  Sonnet  60. 

^  The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Edmund  Spenser ,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  11.  Cam- 
bridge ed.  Boston,  1908. 

448 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

view  of  the  method  of  deducing  his  age  from  the  expression 
"al  those  fourty'':  — 

It  is,  however,  to  be  noted  what  the  mutilated  quotation  of 
the  Sonnet  hitherto  has  hidden,  that  on  his  Life  ("my  Hfe  out- 
went") in  another  Hne,  epexegetical  of  the  other,  he  characterizes 
"  fourty  yeares"as  having  been  wasted  in  long  languishment  of 
love  and  loving.  If  we  attach  precision  to  the  former,  equal  pre- 
cision must  be  attached  to  the  latter;  and  this  being  so,  it  seems 
needful  to  allow  some  limited  term  of  years  to  have  gone  before 
the  "fourty."  He  can  hardly  have  begun  to  "languish"  until  he 
had  passed  into  his  early  teens  at  soonest.  Yet  if  "  fourty  yeares  " 
are  to  be  taken  strictly,  we  have  been  inaugurating  his  "  languish- 
ment" while  still  "Muling  and  puking  in  his  nurse's  arms."  ^ 

It  is  evident  that  Dr.  Grosart  had  little  confidence  in  the 
peculiar  method  of  settling  genealogical  problems  adopted  by 
some  of  his  predecessors.  The  poems  having  been  found  to 
be  so  prolific  in  genealogical  data,  it  was  surmised  that  they 
might  conceal  other  hints,  and  they  did,  for  to  the  "  Amoretti " 
and  *'Epithalamion"  we  are  indebted  for  his  mother's  name, 
the  date  of  his  marriage,  and  the  name  of  his  wife.  The  "  Amo- 
retti"  and  "Epithalamion''  present  to  us  a  difficult  problem. 
The  first  consists  of  eighty-nine  sonnets,  and  the  latter  of 
twenty-four  strophes,  and  have  been  regarded  as  embodying 
Spenser's  prenuptial  and  nuptial  experiences.  Both  were  en- 
tered for  publication  on  the  Stationers'  Register,  November, 
1594,  and  from  this  fact,  and  this  fact  alone,  it  has  been  as- 
sumed that  they  were  written  not  long  prior  to  that  date. 
Though  containing  some  of  the  best  poetic  lines  written  by 
their  author,  both  poems  pour  forth  one  long  fanfaronade 
of  nuptial  passion,  and  we  refuse  to  believe  that  their  author 
intended  to  reveal  himself  through  them  to  public  gaze.  It 
would  have  been  too  indelicate,  though  he  might  have  com.- 
posed  them  for  a  friend  or  patron.  The  sonnet  assumed  to 
reveal  the  names  of  his  mother  and  wife  is  as  follows :  — 

^  Rev.  Alexander  B.  Grosart,  LL.D.,  F.S.A.,  The  Complete  Works  of  Edmund 
Spenser,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  2.   London,  1882-84. 

449 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Most  happy  letters!  fram'd  by  skilfull  trade, 
with  which  that  happy  name  was  first  desynd 
the  which  three  times  thrise  happy  hath  me  made 
with  gifts  of  body,  fortune,  and  of  mind. 
The  first  my  being  to  me  gave  by  kind, 
from  mother's  wombe  derived  by  due  descent 
the  second  is  my  sovereigne  Queene  most  kind, 
that  honour  and  large  riches  to  me  lent. 
The  third,  my  love,  my  lives  last  ornament, 
by  whom  my  spirit  out  of  dust  was  raised: 
to  speake  her  prayse  and  glory  excellent, 
of  all  alive  most  worthy  to  be  praised. 
Ye  three  Elizabeths  for  ever  live. 
That  three  such  graces  did  unto  me  give.^ 

We  will  accept,  tentatively,  the  declaration  that  the  author 
of  this  sonnet  was  '*  derived  by  due  descent  from  one  of  the 
three  Elizabeths":  Bacon  was,  if  we  accept  the  cipher  story. 
There  is,  however,  an  equivoque  in  the  verbal  form  of  the  dec- 
laration. His  "being"  is  said  "by  kind"  to  have  been  "de- 
rived by  due  destent "  from  one  of  the  Elizabeths.  This  might 
be  said  with  propriety  by  a  more  remote  descendant  even 
than  a  son.  For  instance,  Charles  I,  whose  mother's  name 
was  Anna,  might  have  said  that  "by  kind,"  that  is,  by  kin  or 
kindred,  he  was  "derived  by  due  descent"  from  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots.  The  question  is.  Did  the  poet  intend  to  be  under- 
stood as  claiming  that  both  his  mother  and  wife  bore  the 
illustrious  name  of  his  Queen  ^.  In  considering  this  question 
we  should  remember  a  peculiarity  conspicuous  both  in  the 
"Shakespeare"  Sonnets  and  the  "Faerie  Queene."  In  both 
the  poet,  by  a  deft  exercise  of  littT2iry  finesse,  changes  person- 
alities at  will.  In  the  case  of  Elizabeth  we  have  in  the  latter 
Belphoebe,  Gloriana,  and  Britomarte,  quite  distinct  personal- 
ities, yet  they  are  all  Elizabeth  under  different  aspects.  We 
suggest,  therefore,  that  the  poet  might  be  addressing  Eliza- 
beth under  different  aspects,  though  in  this  case  more  inti- 
mately. We  may  also  inquire  if  his  declaration  that  his  wife 

^  The  Folio  of  1611  (from  Author's  copy),  p.  489;  of.  Francis  J,  Child,  The 
Poetical  Works  of  Edmund  Spenser,  vol.  v,  p.  278.   Boston,  1855. 

4SO 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

was  "of  all  alone  most  worthy  to  be  praised/'  not  excepting 
his  Queen,  could  have  been  made  without  a  serious  breach  of 
etiquette  ?  It  might  have  been  made  to  his  wife  in  the  privacy 
of  domestic  life,  but  to  have  sent  these  lines  to  the  jealous  and 
imperious  Elizabeth  is  another  matter,  and  might  have  made 
the  writer  persona  non  grata  forever  after,  if  it  did  not  subject 
him  to  a  charge  of  lese  majeste.  Besides,  the  "Amoretti"  and 
"Epithalamion"  contain  terms  of  ecstatic  admiration  which 
were  her  prerogative  as  is  evinced  by  a  careful  reading.  Think 
of  one  of  her  subjects  saying  of  his  wife  as  publicly  as  this  was 
said  by  one  whom  his  biographers  claim  was  a  courtier  — 

that  he  would  ween 
Some  Angel  she  had  been 
Her  long  loose  yellow  locks  like  golden  wire, 
Sprinkled  with  pearl,  and  perling  flowrers  atween. 
Her  goodly  eyes  like  Saphyres  showing  bright 
Her  forehead  Ivory  white. 

It  should  be  noted  how  faithfully  these  lines  depict  the 
Queen  in  the  exaggerated  style  of  the  period.  Her  rosy  cheeks 
are  said  to  be 

Like  crimson  dyde  in  grain 
That  even  the  Angels,  which  continually 
About  the  sacred  Altar  do  remain 
Forget  their  service  and  about  her  fly. 

Epithalamion,  Folio  1649. 

Such  terms  as  the  following  could  hardly  have  been  applied 
to  the  poor  Irish  clerk's  wife:  — 

The  soveraigne  beauty  which  I  do  admire 
Witness  the  world  how  worthy  to  be  prais'd 
The  light  whereof  hath  kindled  heavenly  fire 
In  my  frail  spirit,  by  her  from  baseness  rais'd 
The  glorious  pourtract  of  that  Angel's  face 
Made  to  amaze  weak  mens  confused  skill. 

Amoretti^  ibid. 

These  examples  remind  one  of  the  manner  in  which  her 
courtiers  were  wont  to  address  the  Queen.  Angel  was  a  term 

4SI 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

often  applied  to  her.  For  a  son  to  have  addressed  his  mother 
under  the  aspects  of  a  "bestower  of  honour,"  a  "lender  of 
riches,"  and  above  all  a  being  "most  worthy  to  be  praised," 
would  have  been  a  gracious  and  acceptable  thing.  By  riches 
the  poet,  of  course,  meant  mental  riches  in  the  sense  in  which 
he  employed  it  in  his  "Astrophel":  — 

To  her  he  vow'd  the  service  of  his  daies, 
On  her  he  spent  the  riches  of  his  wit. 

Let  us  now  inquire  how  the  date  of  Spenser's  mar- 
riage was  determined.  In  the  "  Epithalamion "  are  these 
lines :  — 

Ring  out  ye  bells,  ye  young  men  of  the  town, 
And  leave  Your  wonted  labors  for  the  day: 
This  day  is  holy;  do  you  write  it  down 
That  ye  for  ever  it  remember  may. 
This  day  the  sun  is  in  its  chiefest  hight, 
With  Barnaby  the  bright.^ 

The  "Amoretti"  and  "Epithalamion"  were  entered  upon 
the  Stationers'  Register,  November,  1594,  and  the  marriage 
is  assumed  to  have  taken  place  six  months  before  on  St.  Barna- 
bas Day,  June  1 1 .  It  might  have  been  placed  six  years  before 
with  as  much  propriety.  Desiring  to  ascertain  if  possible  the 
true  date  of  Spenser's  marriage,  we  have  endeavored  to  obtain 
from  the  Church  Registers  in  the  County  of  Cork  evidence 
of  the  event,  but  thus  far,  without  result. 

We  should  call  attention  to  two  documents  discovered  by 
Dr.  Grosart ;  one  a  petition  of  Sylvanus  Spenser,  eldest  son  of 
Edmund  Spenser,  declaring  that  the  petitioner  "was  seized 
in  his  desmene  in  fee  of  KyllcoUman,  and  divers  other  lands 
and  tenements  —  in  the  county  of  Corke,  which  descended  to 
your  petitioner  by  the  death  of  his  said  father,"  and  which 
came  into  the  hands  "of  Roger  Seckerstone  and  the  petition- 
ers mother  which  they  unjustly  detayneth."  This  was  in  1603 . 
The  other  document  is  an  Indenture  of  May  3,  1606,  between 

^  Folio  161 1,  p.  480. 

452 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

''Sir  Richard  Boyle  —  and  Elizabeth  Boyle  als  Seckerstone 
of  Kilcoran,  widow."  ^ 

We  have  no  disposition  to  question  this,  though  it  seems  to 
conflict  seriously  with  the  assumed  date  of  Spenser's  marriage, 
as  Sylvanus  could  not  have  been  over  eight  years  of  age  at 
the  time  he  petitioned.  It  has  been  "assumed,"  of  course,  that 
he  was  represented  by  a  guardian  or  other  authorized  person, 
but  this  nowhere  appears,  which  makes  it  seem  probable  that 
he  was  of  legal  age  in  1606. 

But  there  is  another  curious  fact  connected  with  the  Spenser 
of  the  biographers.  "At  some  time  after  leaving  college,"  we 
are  told,  "  Spenser  went  to  reside  in  the  North  of  England,  it 
may  be  with  relatives  in  Lancashire  —  and  early  in  1579  we 
find  him  residing  in  Kent,"  and  on  the  i6th  of  October  at 
Leicester  House  where  he  was  until  August,  1580,  at  which 
time  he  received  the  appointment  of  secretary  to  "  Lord  Grey 
of  Wilton  deputed  to  the  Government  of  Ireland."  ^ 

Thus  in  1580,  Spenser  went  with  Gray  to  Ireland,  where  with 
others  he  was  granted  land.  Here  he  passed  his  life  until  a  few 
weeks  before  his  death  in  1598.  This  date  is  fixed  beyond 
peradventure  by  Chamberlain,  "London,  this  17th  of  Janu- 
ary, 1598,  Spenser  our  principall  poet,  coming  lately  out  of 
Ireland,  died  at  Westminster  on  Saturday  last."  ^  In  1596, 
was  sent  to  the  Queen  his  view  of  conditions  in  Ireland,  in 
which  he  related  the  following  incident :  — 

At  the  execution  of  a  notable  traytor  at  Limericke  called 
Murrogh  O  Brien,  I  saw  an  old  woman  which  was  his  foster  mo- 
ther take  up  his  head,  whilst  he  was  quartered,  and  sucked  up  all 
the  blood  that  runne  thereout,  saying  that  the  earth  was  not 
worthy  to  drinke  it,  and  therewith  also  steeped  her  face  and 
brest,  and  tore  her  haire,  crying  out  and  shrieking  most  ter- 
ribly.^ 

^  Rev.  Alexander  Grosart,  The  Complete  Works,  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  198,  556. 

*  Grosart,  vol.  i,  p.  2. 

*  Letters  written  by  John  Chamberlain,  p.  41.    London,  1861. 

*  Edmund  Spenser,  Esq.,  J  View  of  the  State  0/  Ireland,  1396,  in  Ancient 
Irish  History,  vol.  11,  p.  104.    Dublin,  1809. 

453 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  date  of  this  execution  is  thus  fixed  in  a  letter  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Drury  to  Leicester,  dated  July  8, 1 5 77,  in  which  he  says :  — 

The  first  day  of  this  month,  I  adjourned  the  sessions  for  the 
county  of  Limerick  until  a  new  warning  and  caused  one  Mur- 
rough  O.  Bryan  —  to  be  executed.^ 

This  was  more  than  three  years  before  the  departure  of  our 
biographers'  Spenser  for  Ireland.  How  can  this  and  other  in- 
cidents, described  in  the  "View  of  Ireland"  as  taking  place 
before  1580,  be  accounted  for?  Spenser's  latest  biographer 
admits  that 

We  have  evidence,  not  altogether  conclusive,  that  in  that 
year  (1577)  he  was  with  Sir  Henry  Sidney  in  Ireland  acting  as 
one  of  his  secretaries.^ 

Would  this  evidence  based  on  Spenser's  own  statement  fail 
to  be  concmsive  were  it  not  for  a  preconceived  theory  ? 

Dismissing  the  question  of  Spenser's  age,  which,  had  we 
raised  it  two  centuries  or  more  ago,  would  have  been  as  posi- 
tively affirmed  as  if  we  had  questioned  a  favorite  dogma, 
and  we  should  have  been  curtly  directed  to  his  monument 
for  confirmation,  let  us  now  pass  to  a  brief  consideration  of 
the  works  now  accredited  him.  The  first,  the  "Shepherd's 
Calendar,"  the  name  of  a  popular  almanac,  was  published 
anonymously  in  1579.  It  was  dedicated  to  Sidney,  and  a  pref- 
atory poem  followed,  signed  Immerito.  That  this  pseudonym 
was  supposed  to  be  a  mask  of  Sidney  is  shown  by  Whetstones, 
who  ascribed  the  "Calendar"  to  him  in  these  words:  — 

The  last  Shepherd's  Calendar,  the  reputed  work  of  Sir  Phil 
Sidney,  a  work  of  deep  learning,  judgement  and  witte,  disguised 
as  Shep's  Rules. ^ 

In  1590  appeared  the  "Faerie  Queene."  In  this  the  name, 
Spenser,  first  appeared  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Ralegh,  dated 
January  23,  1589. 

^  Carew  Papers,  vol.  ii,  p.  104. 

2  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Spenser^  p.  xiii.  Cambridge  Ed.,  Boston,  1908. 

'  George  Whetstones,  Sir  Phillip  Sidney^  etc.,  p.  loi.   London,  1587. 

454 


ANOm^MOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

The  "Faerie  Queene"  is  a  poetical  romance  of  chivalry 
evidently  conceived  by  a  very  young  man,  partly  finished,  and 
later  added  to,  but  finally  left  incomplete.  It  illustrates  under 
a  thinly  veiled  allegory  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  here  we 
have  one  number  of  the  combination  to  unlock  the  secret  to 
the  author's  personality.  As  in  the  "  Shakespeare  "  Sonnets,  so 
in  the  "  Faerie  Queene,''  by  a  deft  transition  the  personality 
of  a  character  is  changed  as  the  imagination  of  the  poet  is 
flashed  upon  some  quality  in  it  which  is  needed  to  round  out 
his  artistic  scheme,  an  artifice  peculiar  to  Ariosto;  thus  Eliza- 
beth —  the  Faerie  Queene  —  in  her  role  of  royalty  is  Gloriana, 
of  Chastity  is  Britomarte,  and  in  that  of  a  gentle  lady  is  Bel- 
phoebe ;  Essex  is  Artegal,  or  Lord  Grey,  according  to  the  poet's 
conceit,  and  he  adumbratively  entertains  us  with  historic 
combats  between  Henry  IV  and  Philip  II :  besides  we  have 
reminders  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and  Leicester's  campaign 
in  the  Netherlands,  and  other  historic  characters  and  events. 
The  sudden  shifting  of  personalities  in  the  Sonnets  has  been 
the  despair  of  theoretical  critics.  In  the  "  Faerie  Queene," 
however,  the  glosses  assist  us  in  recognizing  them.  Another 
number  to  the  combination  is  furnished  by  the  moral  purpose 
disclosed  by  the  author.  His  aim  is  to  teach,  to  contribute  to 
the  advancement  of  learning,  by  a  number  of  poetical  Essays 
treating  of  Holiness,  Temperance,  Chastity,  Friendship,  Jus- 
tice, and  Courtesy ;  the  last  on  Mutability  being  left  unfinished. 
This  is  remarkable,  for  it  fits  into  the  scheme  of  the  *' Shake- 
speare" Works  and  the  Essays  of  Bacon.  We  have  already 
referred  to  the  fact  that  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  are 
dramatic  Essays  treating  of  Revenge  ("Hamlet");  Ambi- 
tion ("Macbeth");  Love  ("Romeo  and  Juliet");  Jealousy 
("Othello") ;  Avarice  ("Merchant  of  Venice") ;  Envy  ("Julius 
Caesar");  Hypocrisy  ("Measure  for  Measure");  etc.;  and 
have  called  attention  to  the  Civil  and  Moral  Essays  of  Bacon 
coordinal  with  them,  treating  of  Truth,  Envy,  Death,  Ad- 
versity, etc.    It  is  certainly  remarkable  that  in  the  "Faerie 

4SS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Queene"  we  find  precisely  the  same  purpose  which  culminates 
in  the  great  philosopher's  Civil  and  Moral  Essays.  Is  it  not 
impossible  to  believe,  that  in  a  day  so  uncongenial  to  educa- 
tional effort,  there  were  three  individuals,  a  poor  clerk  in  a 
government  office,  an  uneducated  actor,  and  a  great  thinker 
who  had  taken  all  learning  for  his  province,  all  inspired  by  one 
and  the  same  purpose,  namely,  of  instructing  the  world  by 
moral  Essays,  each  in  a  distinct  literary  form,  one  employing 
poetry,  another  the  drama,  and  yet  another  philosophy  ?  We 
leave  the  answer  to  our  reader. 

During  the  next  five  years  most  of  the  "Spenser"  Works 
appeared  in  print.  In  1611  they  were  collected  and  published 
in  folio  by  some  one  unknown,  with  the  name  "Edmund 
Spenser"  on  the  title-page.  This  title-page  is  so  remarkable 
that  we  have  reproduced  it  for  the  particular  attention  of  the 
reader.  The  Foli'o  also  contained  the  "  Shepherd's  Calendar," 
which  had  hitherto  been  anonymous,  with  its  Immerito  poem.  In 
a  collection  of  works  like  this  we  should  expect  to  find  a  sketch 
of  the  author's  hfe,  but  in  this  case  nothing  of  the  kind  appears. 

In  1679,  however,  the  folio  already  mentioned  appeared 
with  its  meager  sketch  of  Spenser.  This  has  served  as  a  basis 
for  all  subsequent  writers  to  build  their  airy  fabrics  upon.  We 
have  seen  what  the  unknown  author  of  this  sketch  said  regard- 
ing the  date  of  his  birth.  He  did  something  quite  as  mischiev- 
ous which  succeeding  writers  have  blindly  accepted  without 
critical  examination.  Seeing  the  Immerito  poern,  and,  it  would 
seem,  concluding  that  this  was  a  nom  de  plume  of  Spenser,  and 
also  knowing  of  certain  correspondence  of  Gabriel  Harvey 
with  one  Immerito^  he  included  in  the  volume  five  of  these 
letters,  assuming  that  Harvey's  correspondent  was  Spenser. 
In  these  letters,  and  the  evident  fact  that  the  "Shepherd's 
Calendar"  unmistakably  revealed  the  work  of  a  young  man, 
wefind  why  in  1778,  a  hundred  and  eighty  years  after  Spen- 
ser's death.  Mason  saw  the  necessity  of  changing  the  dates 
upon  the  monument.  To  alter  the  dates  on  a  man's  monument 

4S6 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

so  long  after  its  erection  was  certainly  a  most  reprehensible 
proceeding,  but  how  shall  we  regard  his  biographers,  who  have 
adopted  without  question  Mason's  theory,  and  have  condoned 
his  offense,  as  well  as  that  of  the  unknown  author  of  1679  who 
foisted  the  Immerito  letters  upon  us? 

We  have  already  shown  why  Immerito  was  supposed  to  be 
Spenser's  pen-name:  Harvey  also  addresses  the  same  corre- 
spondent as  Benevolo.  The  question  is.  Do  Harvey's  letters 
identify  Spenser,  the  Cambridge  sizar,  with  the  author  of  the 
"Faerie  Queene"?  Says  Harvey's  editor,  "It  is  curious  that 
Edmund  Spenser's  name  does  not  occur,  and  that  there  is  not 
the  slightest  allusion  to  him  in  any  of  the  twenty-five  letters 
above  mentioned."  ^ 

This  certainly  opens  the  door  for  us  to  inquire  whether  they 
really  were  addressed  to  him.  There  seems  to  be  ample  in- 
ternal evidence  that  they  were  not. 

The  letters  of  Harvey  reveal  to  us  a  most  conceited  and 
egotistical  personality,  erratic  and  quarrelsome  to  the  border 
line  of  irrationality.  His  editor  says  of  him  that  "  being  on  the 
one  hand  the  son  of  a  ropemaker,  he  is  a  perfect  master  of  all 
the  vulgar  slang  and  homely  proverbs  of  his  time ;  and  being 
on  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  most  deeply  read  men  of  his  age, 
and  having,  evidently,  a  most  retentive  memory,  he  employs 
the  most  out-of-the-way  terms,  and  the  most  long-winded 
sentences  to  express  his  meaning."  Yet  allowing  this,  can  we 
imagine  him  addressing,  in  that  age  of  sharp  social  distinctions, 
a  tailor's  son  and  charity  scholar,  and,  withal,  seven  years 
younger  than  himself,  as  "So  honest  a  yuthe  in  ye  city";  "so 
trew  a  gallant  in  ye  courts";  "so  towarde  a  lawier";  and  "so 
witty  a  gentleman";  "II  magnifico  Segnoir  Immerito";  "I 
presume  of  our  oulde  familiaritye " ;  "Your  gracious  Master- 
shippe";  "Your  Worship";  "Magnifico  Signor  Benevolo"; 
and  "I  take  my  leave  of  your  Excellencyes  feete"? 

It  would  seem  that  such  terms  were  more  absurd  than  even 

^  Edward  John  Lord  Scott,  Letter-hook  of  Gabriel  Harvey,  p.  viii.   London,  1 884. 

457 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Gabriel  Harvey  in  his  absurdest  moments  could  possibly  ap- 
ply to  one  whose  social  position  even  he  regarded  as  inferior, 
for  sizars  v/ere  obliged  to  perform  menial  services,  which  the 
paid  student  Hke  himself  scorned,  and  he  has  expressed  him- 
self respecting  them  by  comparing  "The  raskallest  siser  in  the 
university  with  the  beggarliest  mendicant  frier  in  a  country." 
Not  a  single  term  employed  by  Harvey  describes  the  subject 
of  his  obsequious  adulation.  Certainly  he  was  not  a  lawyer, 
toward  or  otherwise;  nor  could  he  have  addressed  him  as 
*'  courtier  and  a  gentleman."  True,  the  biographers  of  Spenser, 
like  those  of  the  Stratford  actor,  have  exhibited  him  as  a  favor- 
ite figure  in  Elizabeth's  Court,  but  there  is  not  the  least  evi- 
dence of  this;  in  fact,  he  was  so  disliked  that  Burghley  is  said 
to  have  kept  him  from  her  presence,  and  that  worthy  old 
gossip.  Fuller,  says  that  the  only  way  he  could  devise  to  get  a 
hundred  pounds  which  she  had  promised  to  bestow  upon  him, 
was  to  waylay  her  with  "a  witty  rhyme"  when  she  was  mak- 
ing a  journey,  a  very  common  device  for  wits  out  at  elbow  to 
employ,  as  we  have  observed.     *• 

This  story  which,  without  reason,  has  given  color  to  his  re- 
ception at  Court,  has  its  origin  in  a  yarn  by  one,  Touse,  to 
another  London  gossip,  Manningham,  and  has  been  consider- 
ably enlarged  by  a  third.  Fuller.  Hales  relates  a  quite  different 
story,  but  they  are  not  worthy  of  repetition.^ 

It  should  be  remembered  that  Harvey,  Bacon,  and  the  sizar 
Spenser,  were  at  Cambridge  at  the  same  period,  and  that  it 
was  something  worth  while  for  men  like  Harvey  to  be  on 
speaking  terms  with  this  aristocratic  young  son  of  the  Great 
Lord  Keeper,  favorite  of  the  court,  and  on  familiar  terms  with 
the  Queen.  Such  expressions  as  we  have  quoted  were  in  the 
fashion  of  the  times,  and,  if  we  may  judge  from  similar  ex- 
amples, did  not  seem  overstrained ;  but  they  would  have  been 
impossible  of  application  to  the  tailor's  son,  a  sizar,  and  espe- 

1  John  Manningham' s  Diary,  p.  435;  Thomas  Fuller's  Worthies,  p.  222;  R. 
Morris,  Complete  Works  0/,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  xiii,  et  seq. 

4S8 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

cially  by  a  man  in  his  own  class  socially.  Why,  too,  should 
he  speak  of  him  as  **  My  yunge  Italianate  Seignoir  and  French 
Monseiur"?  We  know  that  Bacon  had  not  long  before  re- 
turned home  from  his  travels  in  Italy  and  France,  so  that 
Harvey  might  well  have  addressed  him  thus. 

Of  course  the  two  Immerito  letters  to  Harvey,  one  dated  at 
Leicester  House,  October,  1579,  and  the  other  at  Westminster 
the  following  April,  should  be  noticed.  The  writer  speaks  in 
the  first  of  a  prospect  of  going  abroad  on  some  mission.  This 
is  cited  as  evidence  of  Spenser's  authorship  of  the  letters,  be- 
cause a  year  after,  if  he  was  not  in  Ireland  already,  he  was 
sent  there  by  Leicester.  To  ask  us  to  accept  this  as  evidence 
is  simply  begging  the  question.  In  the  second  letter,  six 
months  later,  Immerito  does  not  allude  to  a  prospective  jour- 
ney, but  speaks  of  "my  Faerie  Queene,"  "my  Calendar,"  "my 
Dreames,"  and  other  works.  In  the  latter  he  says  are  "Many 
things  wittily  discoursed  of  E.K.  and  the  pictures  so  singularly 
set  forth  and  portrayed,  as  if  Michael  Angelo  were  there,  he 
could  [I  think]  nor  amende  the  beste,  not  reprehende  the 
worse."  These  "Dreams"  we  should  like  to  see,  and  what  was 
discoursed  of  E.  K.,  supposedly  the  author  himself,  though 
an  unavailing  effort  has  been  made  to  identify  the  initials  as 
those  of  an  Edward  Kirk,  son  of  a  boarding-house  keeper. 

Harvey,  in  his  reply,  omits  allusion  to  the  prospective  jour- 
ney in  the  first  letter,  but  he  speaks  of  "your  nine  Comedies," 
which  indicates  that  Immerito,  in  addition  to  the  poems 
spoken  of,  was  also  writing  comedies.  This  is  interesting,  for 
comedies  were  in  demand,  and  worth  good  money  which  their 
author  needed.  We  wonder  what  became  of  them.  Harvey 
also  reveals  in  one  of  his  fantastic  screeds  his  correspondent's 
reasons  for  concealment  in  these  words:  "I  take  occasion  to 
show  you  a  peece  of  a  letter  receyved  from  Courte  written  by 
a  friende  of  mine,  that  since  a  Certayn  chaunce  befallen  him,  a 
secret  not  to  be  revealed,  calleth  himself  Immerito,"  ^ 

*  Harvey's  Letter  Book. 

459 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Certainly  the  poor  tailor's  son  could  not  have  been  writing 
from  Elizabeth's  Court,  nor  by  the  wildest  stretch  of  imagina- 
tion can  we  conceive  of  his  having  a  secret  so  great  as  to  com- 
pel him  to  conceal  his  authorship  of  a  poem;  but,  according  to 
the  cipher  story,  the  young  attache  at  the  French  Court,  so 
praised  by  Paulet,  was  then  reveling  in  dreams  of  power,  and 
possessed  a  very  great  secret  which  could  not  be  disclosed.  We 
may  well  ask  if  in  this  frame  of  mind  he  might  not  have  woven 
into  his  poetical  productions  incidents  of  his  own  life,  irre- 
spective of  any  ciphers,  and  if  this  is  not  especially  evident  in 
the  "Shepherd's  Calendar"  and  "Mother  Hubbard's  Tale"? 
TRat  he  did  this  has  been  shown  so  well  already,  that  to  treat 
this  phase  of  our  subject  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation.^ 
There  are,  however,  other  interesting  points  to  consider. 

Any  one  who  looks  through  Spenser's  different  biographies 
will  be  struck  with  the  portraits  which  illustrate  them.  Evi- 
dently the  old  trick  of  enterprising  publishers,  who,  wanting  a 
portrait,  select  a  promising  one  from  stock,  has  been  resorted 
to  in  the  case  of  Spenser.  We  present  two  as  examples. 

His  verbal  portrait  was  drawn  by  Aubrey  in  this  graphic 
manner:  "He  was  a  little  man,  wore  short  hair,  little  band  and 
little  cufifs " ;  ^  which  may  present  him  to  us  in  a  more  lively 
manner  than  either  of  his  portraits.  The  Edmund  Spenser 
who  passed  his  life  in  Ireland  is  represented  always  as  a  poor 
man,  perhaps  because  of  Fuller's  rather  pedantic  comparison 
of  him  with  an  author  of  antiquity,  who  was  said  to  have  been 
more  famous  for  his  poverty  than  his  writings.^ 

There  is  no  positive  evidence  that  he  ever  revisited  England. 
His  biographers  give  us  several  dates  of  visits  adjusted  con- 
veniently to  events,  as  the  return  of  Lord  Grey  from  Ireland, 
the  publication  of  books  accredited  to  him,  and  the  bestowal 
of  a  small  pension  upon  him.  It  should  be  noted  that  the 
Rolls  Office,  Dublin,  discloses  these  facts:  "August  12,  1580, 

*  See  Granville  C.  Cunningham,  Bacon^s  Secret  Disclosed.   London,  191 1. 
.  *  Aubrey's  Lives,  in  loco.  '  Fuller's  Worthies^  p.  220. 

460 


THE  "KINNOULL"  THE  -WILSON' 

EDMUND   SPENSER 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

Lord  Grey  accompanied  by  his  Secretary,  Edmund  Spenser, 
arrived."  If  the  latter  had  been  there  under  Sidney  in  1577, 
he  must  have  been  well  acquainted  with  the  country. 

March  22  (following)  Spenser  was  appointed  Clerk  of  De- 
crees and  Recognizances  of  Chancery.  In  respect  of  his  posi- 
tion as  secretary  to  Lord  Grey  his  patent  was  given  "free  of 
the  seal."  Lord  Grey  relinquished  his  office  in  August,  1582, 
but  Spenser  retained  his  position  until  the  22d  June,  1588, 
when  he  was  succeeded  by  Arland  Usher. ^  "It  is  evident," 
says  Hales,  "that  he  did  not  return  with  Grey  but  abode  still 
in  Ireland." 

Spenser  merely  changed  his  office  of  Clerk  of  Decrees  for  the 
more  important  position  of  Clerk  of  the  Council  of  Ulster. 
The  duties  of  these  offices  were  exacting,  and  the  salaries 
small.  The  incumbent  could  not  safely  have  left  them  at  any 
time  without  imperiling  his  interests.  It  was  a  maxim  then 
well  understood  by  all  incumbents  of  public  offices  that  it  was 
"  not  safe  to  leave  the  stool  empty."  This  office  of  Clerk  to  the 
Council,  which  demanded  his  closest  attention,  he  seems  to 
have  held  until  the  autumn  of  1591,  when  on  October  26,  he 
was  granted  "the  Manor  and  Castle  of  Kylcolman  with  other 
lands  containing  3028  acres  in  the  Barony  of  Fermoy,  Country 
Cork,  also  chief  rents  forfeited  by  the  late  Lord  Thetmore  and 
the  late  traitor.  Sir  John  Desmond."  ^ 

Any  one  who  has  studied  the  history  of  the  confiscation 
of  Irish  estates  by  Elizabeth  knows  the  difficulty  which  the 
grantees  encountered,  rendering  de  facto  possession,  and  con- 
stant watchfulness,  necessary  to  protect  their  grants ;  hence 
it  was  a  condition  of  Spenser's  grant  that  he  should  remain 
upon  his  estate,  and  he  could  not,  if  he  would,  have  left  Ireland 
safely;  besides,  the  records  reveal  a  startling  condition  of 
affairs.    Colin,  the  gentle  shepherd,  when  he  did  "assyne"  his 

*  Sir  Philip  de  Malpas  Grey  Egerton,  Bart.,  etc.,  A  Commentary  on  the  Serv- 
iceSy  etc.,  of  William  Lord  Grey^  p.  xviii.   London,  1847. 

*  MemoirSj  etc.,  p.  xxxii. 

461 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

office  "unto  one  Nicholas  Courtneys,"  covenanted  that  he 
should  be  "free  in  said  office  for  his  cawses";  in  other  words, 
could  prosecute  suits  at  law  without  cost  to  himself;  "by  rea- 
son of  which  immunity,"  we  are  told,  and  the  records  disclose, 
he  multiplied  oppressive  suits  against  many  persons  to  get 
possession  of  their  estates.  Moreover,  he  showed  the  harshest 
spirit  against  the  distracted  natives,  advocating  measures 
"little  short  of  wholesale  depopulation."  ^ 

Tf  rotter,  describing  the  treatment  of  his  countrymen  by  the 
English,  thus  alludes  to  him :  — 

When  Spenser,  the  poetic,  the  gentle  Spenser,  was  guilty  of 
these  oppressive  and  unjust  proceedings,  the  reader  may  easily 
guess  at  the  conduct  of  his  more  ignorant  and  brutal  fellow- 
planters  by  whom  the  country  was  converted  into  a  desert.  For 
these  and  other  aggressions  on  the  unfortunate  natives,  the  poet 
soon  afterwards  felt  the  full  weight  of  their  vengeance.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  Spenser  amid  the  engrossing  duties 
of  his  various  offices,  oppressed  with  the  details  of  vexatious 
lawsuits,  and  struggling  to  maintain  his  estate,  setting  out  for 
London  to  publish  his  poems  and  dawdle  in  Elizabeth's  Court. 
In  any  case,  the  Spenser  who  went  with  Grey  to  Ireland  in  1580 
resided  there  till  shortly  before  his  death,  and  could  not  have 
been  on  a  familiar  footing  at  Court  as  some  of  the  effusions 
credited  to  him  might  imply,  nor  had  his  bitter  complaint  as  a 
suitor  at  Court  any  relevancy  to  him,  though  it  perfectly  coin- 
cides with  Bacon's  experiences  and  utterances. 

The  wonderful  power  of  pictorial  expression  in  the  poems 
ascribed  to  Spenser  alone  finds  its  counterpart  in  the  "  Shake- 
speare" Works,  and  it  is  especially  remarkable  that  as  Mar- 
lowe is  said  to  have  exerted  a  dominating  influence  on  th  e 
earlier  works  of  this  author,  so  it  is  said  that  Spenser  exerted 
as  marked  an  influence  upon  Marlowe.  If  this  is  the  case,  why 

^  James  Hardiman,  M.R.I.A.,  Irish  Minstrelsy ^  vol.  i,  pp.  319-21.  London, 
1831. 

*  Walks  in  Ireland. 

462 


ANONYMOUS  AUTHORSHIP 

not  go  back  to  the  fountain-head  and  say  that  Spenser  influ- 
enced Shakspere?  The  important  bearing  of  this  criticism 
upon  Bacon's  authorship  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  we 
propose  to  show  by  a  few  of  a  much  greater  number  of  quota- 
tions that  might  be  made  from  not  only  Marlowe,  but  from 
Greene  and  Peele,  the  three  other  personce  whom  Bacon,  it 
is  said,  employed  to  reach  the  public  ear. 

Several  small  works  under  no  name  wonne  worthy  praise. 
Next  in  Spenser's  name  also  they  ventured  into  an  unknowne 
world.  When  I,  at  length,  having  written  in  diverse  styles, 
found  three,  who  for  sufficient  reward  In  gold  added  to  an  imme- 
diate renoune  as  good  pens  willingly  put  forth  all  works  which 
I  had  compos'd,  I  was  bolder.^ 

It  is  instructive  to  note  how  the  orthodox  Shaksperian 
critic  associates  his  author  with  Greene,  Peele,  and  Marlowe. 
Here  is  a  familiar  instance  from  Dowden :  — 

In  the  Second  and  Third  parts  of  "Henry  VI,"  he  [Shakspere] 
worked  upon  the  basis  of  old  plays  written  probably  by  Marlowe 
and  Greene^  possibly  also  Peele,  and  In  the  revision  he  may  have 
had  Marlowe  as  a  collaborator. 

If  the  Stratford  actor's  biographers  had  analyzed  the  works 
accredited  to  these  men,  and  had  frankly  shown  their  readers 
the  true  status  of  the  case,  instead  of  cloying  them  with  pleas- 
ant fiction,  Shaksperian  criticism  would  occupy  a  more  cred- 
itable position  than  it  does  at  present. 

^  B {literal  Cypher ^  p.  8i. 


XIII 

A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

We  propose  to  show  by  quotations  from  works  now  as- 
cribed to  Spenser,  Greene,  and  Marlowe,  not  only  a  similarity 
of  style,  but  the  same  thoughts  and  expressions,  forcing  one 
to  the  conclusion  that  either  the  men  who  have  been  hailed 
by  careless  critics  as  the  foremost  in  England's  Renaissance 
were  criminal  plagiarists,  or  the  excerpts  which  we  quote  from 
the  works  accredited  them  were  conceived  by  a  single  brain, 
and  written  by  a  single  hand,  which  confirms  what  Bacon  says 
in  cipher,  that  he  sometimes  used  what  he  wrote  a  second  time 
to  serve  another  purpose.  Take  "Locrine,"  "Selimus,"  and 
"Tamburlaine,"  and  compare  them  with  work  attributed  to 
Spenser.  In  the  "  Faerie  Queene,"  published  in  1590,  the  story 
of  Locrine  is  told,  but  later  it  was  dramatized,  as  appears  by 
the  Stationers'  Register,  and  published  in  quarto  in  1595  as 
a  "Shakespeare"  play,  and  included  in  the  "Shakespeare" 
Folio  of  1664.  "Tamburlaine"  was  published  in  1590,  and 
"Selimus"  in  1594.  This,  however,  is  not  proof  of  the  dates 
of  their  composition.  "  Selimus,"  like  many  other  anonymous 
works,  wandered  fatherless  until  1866,  when  Dr.  Grosart  as- 
sumed the  liberty  of  appropriating  it,  as  others  had  been  doing 
in  like  instances,  and  included  it  in  his  edition  of  Greene. 

The  passages  we  quote  are  intended  to  illustrate  our  con- 
tention, that  early  poems  drifting  about  previous  to  161 1, 
when  they  were  gathered  into  the  "Spenser"  Folio  of  that 
date,  were  laid  under  contribution  by  their  author  to  serve 
him  in  dramatic  composition.  The  reader,  knowing  by  repute 
the  nominal  authors  of  the  works  from  which  we  quote,  but 
unfamiliar  with  the  works  themselves,  will  be  surprised  by 
these  comparisons  which  we  make.  The  "Spenser"  excerpts  are 

464 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

from  the  "Spenser"  Folio  of  1611,  from  Grosart's  "Greene," 
and  from  "Locrine,"  in  the  "Shakespeare''  FoHo  of  1664. 

Spenser:  High  on  a  hill  a  goodly  Cedar  grewe 

Of  wondrous  length  and  streight  proportion 
That  farre  abroad  her  daintie  odours  threwe; 
Mongst  all  the  daughters  of  proud  Lebanon. 

Greene:  Even  as  the  lustie  cedar  worne  with  yeares, 
That  farre  abroad  her  daintie  odore  throwes, 
Mongst  all  the  daughters  of  proud  Lebanon. 

Locrine,  i,  I. 

Spenser:  A  mighty  Lyon,  lord  of  all  the  wood 

Having  his  hunger  thoroughly  satisfide  / 

With  pray  of  beasts  and  spoyle  of  living  blood 
Safe  in  his  dreadles  den  him  thought  to  hide. 

Greene:  A  Mightie  Lion  ruler  of  the  woods, 

Of  wondrous  strength  and  great  proportion,  — 
Traverst  the  groves,  and  chast  the  wandring  beast. 

Locrine,  i« 

Spenser:  A  hideous  Dragon,  dreadfull  to  behold, 

Whose  backe  was  arm'd  against  the  dint  of  speare. 

With  shields  of  brasse  that  shone  like  burnisht  gold, 

Strove  with  a  Spider  his  unequall  peare; 

And  bad  defiance  to  his  enemie. 

The  subtill  vermin,  creeping  closely  neare, 

Did  in  his  drinke  shed  poyson  privilie; 

Which  through  his  entrailes  spredding  diversly. 

Made  him  to  swell,  that  nigh  his  bowells  burst. 

Greene:  High  on  a  banke  by  Nilus  boystrous  streames, 
Fearfully  sat  the  Aegiptian  Crocodile,  — 
His  back  was  armde  against  the  dint  of  speare. 
With  shields  of  brasse  that  shind  like  burnisht  gold  — 
A  subtill  Adder  creeping  closely  neare  — 
Privily  shead  his  poison  through  his  bones 
Which  made  him  swel  that  there  his  bowels  burst. 

Locrine,  in. 

This  is  from  the  "Ruins  of  Time,"  which  it  may  be  well  to 
notice  was  written  at  St.  Albans:  — 

Nigh  where  the  goodly  Verlame  (Verulam)  stood  of  Yore. 
Spenser:  But  what  can  long  abide  above  this  ground 
In  state  of  blis  or  stedfast  happiness. 

465 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


Locrine,  i. 


Greene:   Oh  what  may  long  abide  above  this  ground, 
In  state  of  bllsse  and  healthfull  happinesse. 

This  is  from  the  "Ruins  of  Rome" :  — 

Spenser:  O  that  I  had  the  Thracian  Poets  harpe 
For  to  awake  out  of  th'  infernall  shade, 
Those  antique  Csesars,  sleeping  long  in  darke, 
The  which  this  ancient  Citie  whilome  madel 
Or  that  I  had  Amphions  instrument 
To  quicken  with  his  vitall  notes  accord 
The  Stonie  joynts  of  these  old  walls  now  pent 
By  which  the  Ausonian  light  might  be  restor'dl 

Greene:  O  that  I  had  Thracian  Orpheus  harpe 
For  to  awake  out  of  the  infernall  shade 
Those  ougly  divels  of  black  Erebus, 
That  might  torment  the  damned  traitors  soule: 
O  that  I  had  Amphions  instrument 
To  quicken  with  his  vitall  notes  and  tunes 
•     The  flintie  joynts  of  everie  stonie  rocke. 
By  which  the  Scithians  might  be  punished. 

Locrine,  iii, 

Spenser:  To  dart  abroad  the  thunderbolts  of  warre 

And  beating  downe  these  walls  with  furious  word  — 

Heapt  hils  on  hils  to  scale  the  starry  skie 

And  fight  against  the  gods  of  heavenly  berth, 

Whiles  Jove  at  them  his  thunderbolts  let  flie; 

All  suddenly  with  lightning  overthrowe. 

The  furious  squadrons  downe  to  ground  did  fall.  — 

Like  as  ye  see  the  wrathfull  sea  from  farre 

In  a  great  mouttaine  heapt  with  hideous  noyse, 

Eftsoones  of  thousand  billowes  shouldred  narre, 

Against  a  rocke  to  breake  with  dreadfull  poyse, 

Tossing  huge  tempests  through  the  troubled  skie. 

Greene:  Darteth  abroad  the  thunderbolts  of  warre 

Beating  downe  millions  with  his  furious  moode; 
And  in  his  glorie  triumphs  over  all, 
Moving  the  massie  squadrants  of  the  ground; 
Heape  hills  on  hills,  to  scale  the  starrie  skie, 
When  Briareus  armed  with  an  hundretn  hands 
Floong  forth  an  hundreth  mountains  at  great  Jove, 
And  when  the  monstrous  giant  Monichus 
Hurld  mount  Olimpus  at  great  Mars  his  targe, 

466 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

And  shot  huge  cedars  at  Minervas  shield; 
How  doth  he  overlooke  with  hautie  front 
My  fleeting  hostes,  and  lifts  his  loftie  face 
Against  us  all  that  now  do  feare  his  force, 
Like  as  we  see  the  wrathfull  sea  from  farre 
In  a  great  mountaine  heapt  with  hideous  noise 
With  thousand  billowes  beat  against  the  ships, 
And  toss  them  in  the  waves  like  tennis  balls. 

Locrinej  ii,  5. 

Marlowe:  What  means  this  devilish  shepherd  to  aspire 
With  such  a  giantly  presumption, 
To  cast  up  hills  against  the  face  of  heaven, 
And  dare  the  force  of  angry  Jupiter?  — 
As  Juno,  when  the  giants  were  suppressed, 
That  darted  mountains  at  her  brother  Jove. 

Tamhurlaine,  11,  6. 

We  will  now  quote  from  the  "Faerie  Queene,"  Folio  of 
1611: — 

Spenser:  As  when  a  wearie  traveller,  that  strayes. 

By  muddy  shore  of  broad  seven-mouthed  Nile, 
Doth  meete  a  cruell  craftie  crocodile. 
Which,  in  false  griefe  hyding  his  harmfull  guile. 
Doth  weepe  full  sore,  etc. 

Marlowe:  Even  as  the  great  Egyptian  crocodile 
Wanting  his  prey,  with  artificial  tears 
And  feigned  plaints,  his  subtle  tongue  doth  file. 
To  entrap  the  silly  wandering  traveller. 

Spenser:  Upon  the  top  of  all  his  loftie  crest, 

A  bounch  of  heares  discolourd  diversly, 

With  sprincled  pearle  and  gold  full  richly  drest, 

Did  shake,  and  seemed  to  daunce  for  jollity; 

Like  to  an  almond  tree  ymounted  hye 

On  top  of  greene  Selinus  all  alone. 

With  blossoms  brave  bedecked  daintily; 

Whose  tender  locks  do  tremble  every  one 

At  everie  little  breath,  that  under  heaven  Is  blowne. 

Marlowe:  I'll  ride  in  golden  armour  like  the  sun 

And  in  my  helm  a  triple  plume  shall  spring 
Spangled  with  diamonds  dauncing  in  the  air, 
To  note  the  emperor  of  the  three-fold  world; 

467 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Like  to  an  almond-tree  ymounted  high 

Upon  the  lofty  and  celestial  mount 

Of  ever-greene  Selinus,  quaintly  deck'd 

With  blooms  more  white  than  Erycina's  brows, 

Whose  tender  blossoms  tremble  every  one 

At  every  little  breath  that  thorough  heaven  is  blowne. 

Tamburlaine,  iv,  3. 

Spenser:  To  decke  his  herce,  and  trap  his  tomb-black  steed. 
Greene:  And  who  are  these  covered  in  tomb-black  hearse? 

Selimus,  11,  1265. 

Spenser:  And  make  his  carkas  as  the  outcast  dong? 
Greene:  Shall  make  thy  carcase  as  the  outcast  dung. 

Sel.  I,  672. 
Spenser:  A  gentle  shepheard  in  Sweete  eventide  — 

A  cloud  of  cumbrous  gnattes  doe  him  molest. 

Greene:  And  like  a  shepherd  mongst  a  swarm  of  gnats. 

Sel.  II,  2477. 
Spenser:  As  he  had  travelld  many  a  sommers  day 

Through  boyling  sands  of  Arabic  and  Ynde. 

Greene:  That  hath  his  steps  guided  through  many  lands 
Through  boiling  soil  of  Africa  and  Ind. 

Sel.  II,  2523. 
Sel.  Now  Bajazet  will  ban  another  while 
And  utter  curses  to  the  concave  skie 
Which  may  infect  the  aiery  regions. 

Log.  Where  I  may  damne,  condemne  and  ban  my  fill,  — 
And  utter  curses  to  the  concave  skie 
Which  may  infect  the  aiery  regions. 

Sel.  More  bloodie  than  the  Antropophagie 

That  fill  their  hungry  stomachs  with  men's  flesh. 

Loc.  Or  where  the  bloodie  Anthrophagie 

With  greedie  jaws  devours  the  wandring  wights. 

Numerous  similarities  of  expression  are  found  in  Marlowe's 
"Dido,"  "Dr.  Faustus,"  and  the  "Jew  of  Malta." 

These  are  but  a  few  of  hundreds  of  examples  of  the  close 
parallelism  in  thought  and  expression  which  exist  in  works 
accredited  to  Spenser,  Greene,  Peele,  and  Marlowe  whose 

468 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

"mighty  line"  is  so  conspicuous  in  them  all,  as  well  as  in  the 
"Shakespeare"  Works,  that  one  theorist,  at  least,  has  as- 
cribed the  latter  to  him.  Bacon  says  that  he  tried  to  vary  his 
style  to  fit  the  names  he  used,  yet  was  aware  of  his  failure. 

Why  write  I  still  all  one,  ever  the  same, 

And  keep  invention  in  a  noted  weed 

That  every  word  doth  almost  tell  my  name, 

Showing  their  birth,  and  where  they  did  proceed. 

Sonnetj  76. 

The  claim  of  the  decipherers  that  Bacon  was  the  author  of 
certain  works  which  have  been  ascribed  to  Peele,  Greene, 
Marlowe,  and  others,  as  startling  as  it  appears,  finds  support 
in  their  lives,  and  especially  in  the  character  of  their  work.  It 
is  in  the  works  of  these  three  authors  especially  that  Strat- 
fordians  claim  to  find  the  Shaksperian  style  of  expression, 
and  many  of  them  assert,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  author  of 
"  Hamlet ''  collaborated  with  them.  All  were  men  of  corrupt 
lives,  who  hung  about  the  playhouses,  picking  up  a  living  as 
occasional  actors,  playwrights,  and  literary  hacks ;  but  are  now 
regarded  as  pioneers  in  the  English  Renaissance. 

Our  first  biography  of  Peele  is  by  Dyce,^  but  a  better  has 
since  been  written  by  BuUen.^ 

PEELE 

His  father,  James  Peele,  a  clerk  of  Christ's  Hospital,  ap- 
pears from  entries  in  the  Court  Book  to  have  been  very  poor. 
George  is  supposed  to  have  been  born  in  1552-53.  By  the  help 
of  the  hospital  he  received  his  degree  of  B.A.  at  Oxford  in 
1577.  Two  years  later  his  father  was  ordered  "to  discharge 
his  howse  of  his  sonne  —  and  all  other  his  howsold."  BuUen 
says  that  "no  doubt  he  had  been  carrying  on  high  jinks  at  the 
Hospital  with  his  roystering  companions,  and  the  Court  was 
scandalized."  He  went  to  London,  where  he  was  living  in  158 1, 

^  Alexander  Dyce,  B.A.,  The  Works  of  George  Peele.  London,  1828. 
*  A.  H.  Bullen,  B.A.,  The  Works  of  George  Peele.   London,  1888. 

469 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

and  was  married  in  1583.  At  college  he  was  regarded  as  a 
writer  of  some  merit,  and  on  several  occasions  assisted  in 
dramatic  exhibitions  at  Christ  Church.  He  was  a  degenerate, 
and  in  a  vile  book  of  jests  which  he  wrote,  he  "figures,"  says 
Bullen,  "  as  a  shifty,  cozening  companion,  ever  on  the  elert  to 
bilk  hostesses  and  tapsters ;  and  reversing  Martial's  lasciva  est 
pagina  vita  probdy'  Bullen  concludes,  "his  verse  was  honest, 
but  his  life  wanton."  Chambers  more  mildly  remarks  that  he 
was  not  overscrupulous  as  to  the  means  of  relieving  his  ne- 
cessities, and  places  him  among  dramatists,  but  not  poets  of 
his  time.  His  career  was,  of  course,  short,  for  Meres  thus  re- 
cords the  end,  which  might  have  occurred  some  years  earlier: 
"As  Anacreon  died  by  the  pot,  so  George  Peele  by  the  pox" ;  ^ 
and  Bullen  adds,  "A  sad  death  for  one  who  had  sung  The 
Praise  of  Chastitie." 

THE   ARRAIGNMENT  OF   PARIS 

The  two  plays  claimed  for  Bacon  must  have  been  very  early 
productions.  "The  Arraignment  of  Paris"  was  a  pastoral  pub- 
lished several  years  after  the  death  of  Peele,  and  was  played 
before  the  Queen  by  the  Children  of  the  Chapel.  The  dramatis 
personce  comprise  the  Gods,  Goddesses,  Cupids,  Cyclops, 
Shepherds,  Knights,  and  others,  among  whom  are  the  char- 
acters with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  "  Shepherd's  Calen- 
dar," Hobbinol,  Thenot,  Diggon,  and  Colin  Clout. 

The  following  is  from  the  Prologue  of  the  first  edition  1584: — 

Enter  Ate. 

Condemned  soule  Ate,  from  lowest  hell, 
And  deadlle  rivers  of  the  infernall  Jove 
Where  bloudles  ghostes  in  paines  of  endles  date 
Fill  ruthles  eares  with  never  ceasing  cries, 
Beholde  I  come  in  place,  and  bring  beside 
The  bane  of  Troie:  beholde  the  fa  tall  frute 
Raught  from  the  golden  tree  of  Proserpine, 
Proude  Troy  must  fall,  so  bidde  the  gods  above, 

*  Francis  Meres,  Palladis  Tamia.  London,  1598. 

470 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

And  statelie  Iliums  loftie  towers  be  racet 

By  conquering  handes  of  the  victorious  foe: 

King  Priams  pallace  waste  with  flaming  fire, 

Whose  thicke  and  foggie  smoake  peircing  the  skie, 

Must  serve  for  messenger  of  sacrifice 

T'  appeaze  the  anger  of  the  angrie  heavens. 

The  play  comprises  some  pleasant  pastoral  scenes ;  the  meet- 
ing of  Pan,  Faunus,  and  Silvanus  to  welcome  the  Goddesses 
Juno,  Venus,  and  Pallas  to  Mount  Ida,  with  a  song  by  Pan :  — 

The  God  of  sheepeheardes  and  his  mates, 
With  countrie  chere  salutes  your  states: 
Faire,  wise,  and  worthie  as  you  bee, 
And  thanke  the  gracious  Ladies  three. 
For  honour  done  to  Ida. 

This  is  followed  by  a  passage  in  the  loves  of  Paris  and 
QEnone,  in  which  Paris  is  warned  against  faithlessness  in  love : 

Gen.  And  whereon  then  shall  be  my  Roundelay: 

For  thou  hast  hearde  my  stoore  long  since,  dare  say, 
•  Of  Daphne  turned  into  the  laurel-tree. 

That  shows  a  mirrow  of  virginity; 

How  fair  Narcissus  tooting  in  his  shade. 

Reproves  disdain,  and  tells  how  form  doth  fade; 

How  cunning  Philomela's  needle  tells 

What  force  in  love,  what  wit  in  sorrow  dwells; 

What  pains  unhappy  souls  abide  in  hell. 

They  say  because  on  earth  they  lived  not  well,  — 

Ixion's  wheel,  proud  Tantal's  pining  woe, 

Prometheus'  torment,  and  a  many  mo. 

How  Danaus'  daughters  ply  their  endless  task, 

What  toil  the  toil  of  Sisyphus  doth  ask; 

All  these  are  old  and  known  I  know,  yet,  if  thou  wilt  have  any. 

Choose  some  of  these,  for,  trust  me,  else  CEnone  hath  not  many. 
Par.  Nay,  what  thou  wilt;    but  sith  my  cunning  not  compares  with 
thine, 

Begin  some  toy  that  I  can  play  upon  this  pipe  of  mine. 
(En.  There  is  a  pretty  sonnet,  then,  we  call  it  Cupid's  Curse, 

"They  that  do  change  old  love  for  new,  pray  gods  they  change  for 
worse  I" 

The  note  is  fine  and  quick  withal,  the  ditty  will  agree, 

Paris,  with  that  same  vow  of  thine  upon  our  poplar-tree. 
Par.  No  better  thing;  begin  it,  then:  CEnone,  thou  shalt  see 

Our  music  figure  of  the  love  that  grows  'twixt  thee  and  me. 

471 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  scene  ends,  — 

(En.  Sweet  shepherd,  for  CEnone's  sake  be  cunning  in  this  song. 

And  keep  thy  love,  and  love  thy  choice,  or  else  thou  dost  her 
wrong. 
Par.  My  vow  is  made  and  witnessed,  the  poplar  will  not  start, 

Nor  shall  the  nymph  CEnone's  love  from  forth  my  breathing 

heart. 
I  will  go  bring  thee  on  thy  way,  my  flock  are  here  behind. 
And  I  will  have  a  lover's  fee;  they  say,  unkiss'd  unkind. 

(Exeunt.) 

Venus,  Juno,  and  Pallas  now  appear,  discover  Paris  alone, 
and,  giving  him  a  golden  apple,  bid  him  bestow  it  upon  the 
one  he  considers  most  beautiful.  Juno  tempts  him  with  a  vi- 
sion of  a  golden  tree  laden  with  diadems  and  crowns  of  gold ; 
Pallas,  with  a  vision  of  knights  in  armor,  "treading  a  warlike 
almain  by  drum  and  fife";  and  Venus,  by  a  vision  of  Helen, 
attended  by  Cupids,  who  ravishes  him  by  a  love-song.  Faithless 
to  (Enone,  he  bestows  the  golden  apple  upon  the  wily  Venus. 

Colin  Clout,  the  passionate  shepherd,  appears  with  other 
shepherds,  and  Colin  sings :  — 

O  gentle  love,  ungentle  for  thy  deede. 

This  is  succeeded  by  QEnone  who  fills  the  woods  with  her 
complaint  of  Paris,  which  is  heard  by  Mercury  who  espouses 
her  cause. 

In  the  mean  time  the  jealousy  of  Juno  and  Pallas  is  brought 
to  bear  upon  Jupiter,  and  the  arraignment  of  Paris  before  the 
high  Court  of  the  Gods  is  decided  upon.  Mercury  bears  the 
tidings  to  Venus :  — 

Mer.  Faire  lady  Venus,  let  me  pardoned  bee 

That  have  of  longe  bin  well  beloved  of  thee, 

Yf  as  my  office  bids,  my  selfe  first  brings 

To  my  sweete  Madame  these  unwellcome  tydings. 

Fen.  What  nues,  what  tydings,  gentle  Mercuric, 
In  midest  of  my  delites  to  troble  me. 

Mer.  At  Junoes  sute,  Pallas  assisting  her, 

Sythe  bothe  did  joyne  in  sute  to  Jupiter, 
Action  is  entred  in  the  court  of  heaven, 

472 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

And  me,  the  swyftest  of  the  Planets  seaven, 
With  warant  they  have  thence  despatcht  away 
To  apprehende  and  finde  the  man,  they  say. 

The  Gods  having  assembled  in  Diana's  bower,  Venus  ap- 
pears with  Paris  before  them,  telling  him :  — 

Then  bashe  not,  sheepeherde,  in  so  good  a  case. 
And  friendes  thou  hast,  as  well  as  foes  in  place. 

The  defense  of  Paris  is  perhaps  the  best  part  of  the  pas- 
toral :  — 

Sacred  and  just,  thou  great  and  dreadful  Jove, 

And  you  thrice  reverende  powers,  whom  love  nor  hate, 

May  wrest  awry,  if  this  to  me  a  man, 

This  fortune  fatall  bee,  that  I  must  pleade. 

For  safe  excusall  of  my  giltles  thought, 

The  honour  more  makes  my  mishap  the  lesse, 

That  I  a  man  must  pleade  before  the  gods, 

Gracious  forbearers  of  the  worldes  amisse. 

For  her,  whose  beautie  how  it  hath  enticet, 

This  heavenly  senate  may  with  me  aver. 

But  sith  nor  that,  nor  this  may  doe  me  boote, 

And  for  my  selfe,  my  selfe  must  speaker  bee, 

A  mortall  man,  amidst  this  heavenlie  presence: 

Let  me  not  shape  a  longe  defence,  to  them, 

That  ben  beholders  of  my  giltles  thoughtes. 

Then  for  the  deede,  that  I  may  not  denie. 

Wherein  consists  the  full  of  myne  offence, 

I  did  upon  commande:  if  then  I  erde, 

I  did  no  more  than  to  a  man  belonged. 

And  if  in  verdit  of  their  formes  devine. 

My  dazled  eye  did  swarve  or  surfet  more 

On  Venus  face,  than  anie  face  of  theirs: 

It  was  no  partiall  fault,  but  fault  of  his 

Belike,  whose  eysight  not  so  perfect  was. 

As  might  decerne  the  brightnes  of  the  rest. 

And  if  it  were  permitted  unto  men 

(Ye  gods)  to  parle  with  your  secret  thoughtes, 

There  ben  that  sit  upon  that  sacred  seate. 

That  woulde  with  Paris  erre  in  Venus  prayse. 

But  let  me  cease  to  speake  of  errour  here: 

Sith  what  my  hande,  the  organ  of  my  harte. 

Did  give  with  good  agreement  of  myne  eye, 

My  tongue  is  voyde  with  processe  to  maintaine. 

473 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

To  this  Pluto  exclaims :  — 

A  jolly  Sheepeherde,  wise  and  eloquent. 

The  decision  is  given  by  Jupiter :  — 

Goe  take  thy  way  to  Troie,  and  there  abide  thy  fate. 

The  golden  apple  is  given  to  Diana  to  bestow  upon  whom 
according  to  her  judgment  she  thinks  most  worthy  to  possess 
it.  Venus,  Juno,  and  Pallas  appear  before  her  with  confidence, 
each  praising  her  sense  of  justice  in  sugared  terms.  Each  vows 
to  accept  her  decision. 

Dia.  It  is  enough,  and  goddesses  attende: 

There  wons  within  these  pleasaunt  shady  woods, 

Where  neither  storme  nor  Suns  distemperature 

Have  power  to  hurte  by  cruell  heate  or  colde, 

Under  the  clymate  of  the  milder  heaven, 

Where  seldome  lights  Joves  angrie  thunderbolt, 

For  favour  of  that  soveraygne  earthly  peere: 

Where  whystling  windes  make  musick  'mong  the  trees, 

Far  from  disturbance  of  our  countrie  gods, 

Amids  the  Cypres  springes  a  gratious  Nymphe, 

That  honours  Dian  for  her  chastitie. 

And  likes  the  labours  well  of  Phoebes  groves: 

The  place  Elizium  hight,  and  of  the  place, 

Her  name  that  governes  there  Eliza  is, 

A  kingdome  that  may  well  compare  with  mine. 

An  auncient  seat  of  kinges,  a  seconde  Troie, 

Ycompast  rounde  with  a  commodious  sea: 

Her  people  are  ycleeped  Angeli. 

The  golden  apple  is  bestowed  upon  Queen  Elizabeth  with 
the  approval  of  the  three  goddesses. 

This  may  seem  a  somewhat  exaggerated  ending,  but  it  is 
well  within  the  manner  of  the  time.  It  should  be  remarked 
that  gentle  Colin  comes  to  his  end  in  this  pastoral,  which  is  in 
the  line  of  the  masques  which  Bacon  so  often  presented  at 
Court,  keeping  himself  always  in  the  background.  To  him  we 
know  that  Jonson  accredits  those  of  which  he  was  supposed  to 
be  the  author.  Of  its  merits  and  demerits  it  is  plain  to  any  one 
of  critical  judgment  that,  as  a  whole,  it  cannot  take  rank  with 

474 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

the  better  handiwork  to  be  found  in  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works,  but  averages  fairly  with  much  in  some  of  the  early 
plays,  and  is  especially  suggestive  of  the  early  style  of  the 
author  of  the  *' Spenser"  Works. 

DAVID  AND   BETHSABE 

This  work  has  been  regarded  more  favorably  than  the  "Ar- 
raignment." The  date 'of  its  composition  is  unknown.  The 
following  is  the  Prologue :  — 

Of  Israel's  sweetest  singer  now  I  sing, 

His  holy  style  and  happy  victories; 

Whose  muse  was  dipt  in  that  inspiring  dew, 

Archangels  'stilled  from  the  breath  of  Jove, 

Decking  her  temples  with  the  glorious  flowers 

Heaven  rain'd  on  tops  of  Sion  and  Mount  Sinai. 

Upon  the  bosom  of  his  ivory  lute 

The  cherubim  and  angels  laid  their  breasts; 

And  when  his  consecrated  fingers  struck 

The  golden  wires  of  his  ravishing  harp. 

He  gave  alarum  to  the  host  of  heaven, 

That,  wing'd  with  lightning,  brake  the  clouds,  and  cast 

Their  crystal  armour  at  his  conquering  feet. 

Of  this  sweet  poet,  Jove's  musician. 

And  of  his  beauteous  son,  I  press  to  sing; 

Then  help,  divine  Adonai,  to  conduct 

Upon  the  wings  of  my  well-temper'd  verse. 

The  hearers'  minds  above  the  towers  of  heaven, 

And  guide  them  so  in  this  thrice  haughty  flight, 

Their  mounting  feathers  scorch  not  with  the  fire 

That  none  can  temper  but  thy  holy  hand: 

To  thee  for  succour  flies  my  feeble  muse. 

And  at  her  feet  her  iron  pen  doth  use. 

Bethsabe  and  her  maid  bathing.   King  David  above 


The  Song 

Hot  sun,  cool  fire,  temper'd  with  sweet  air, 
Black  shade,  fair  nurse,  shadow  my  white  hair: 
Shine  sun,  burn  fire,  breathe  air  and  ease  me. 
Black  shade,  fair  nurse,  shroud  me  and  please  me; 
Shadow  (my  sweet  nurse)  keep  me  from  burning, 
Make  not  my  glad  cause,  cause  of  mourning. 

475 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Let  not  my  beauty's  fire 
Inflame  unstaid  desire, 
Nor  pierce  any  bright  eye 
That  wandereth  lightly. 
Bethsahe.  Come,  gentle  zephyr,  trick'd  with  those  perfumes 
That  erst  in  Eden  sweeten'd  Adam's  love. 
And  stroke  my  bosom  with  the  silken  fan: 
This  shade  (sun  proof)  is  yet  no  proof  for  thee; 
Thy  body,  smoother  than  this  waveless  spring, 
And  purer  than  the  substance  of  the  same, 
Can  creep  through  that  his  lances  cannot  pierce. 
Thou  and  thy  sister,  soft  and  sacred  air, 
Goddess  of  life  and  governess  of  health, 
Keeps  every  fountain  fresh  and  arbour  sweet; 
No  brazen  gate  her  passage  can  repulse. 
Nor  bushy  thicket  bar  their  subtle  breath. 
Then  deck  thee  with  thy  loose  delightsome  robes, 
And  on  thy  wings  bring  delicate  perfumes. 
To  play  the  wantons  with  us  through  the  leaves. 
David.  What  tunes,  what  words,  what  looks,  what  wonders  pierce 
My  soul,  incensed  with  a  sudden  fire! 
What  tree,  what  shade,  what  spring,  what  paradise, 
Enjoys  the  beauty  of  so  fair  a  dame! 
Fair  Eva,  plac'd  In  perfect  happiness. 
Lending  her  praise-notes  to  the  liberal  heavens, 
Struck  with  the  accents  of  archangels'  tunes. 
Wrought  not  more  pleasure  to  her  husband's  thoughts 
Than  this  fair  woman's  words  and  notes  to  mine. 
May  that  sweet  plain  that  bears  her  pleasant  weight, 
Be  still  enamell'd  with  discolour'd  flowers; 
That  precious  fount  bear  sand  of  purest  gold; 
And  for  the  pebble,  let  the  silver  streams 
That  pierce  earth's  bowels  to  maintain  the  source. 
Play  upon  rubles,  sapphires,  crysolites; 
The  brim  let  be  embrac'd  with  golden  curls 
Of  moss  that  sleeps  with  sound  the  waters  make 
For  joy  to  feed  the  fount  with  their  recourse; 
Let  all  the  grass  that  beautifies  her  bower. 
Bear  manna  every  morn.  Instead  of  dew; 
Or  let  the  dew  be  sweeter  far  than  that 
That  hangs  like  chains  of  pearl  on  Hermon  hill. 
Or  balm  which  trickled  from  old  Aaron's  beard. 

Enter  Cusay 
See,  Cusay,  see  the  flower  of  Israel, 
The  fairest  daughter  that  obeys  the  king, 

476 


A  LITERARY  SYNCRISIS 

In  all  the  land  the  Lord  subdued  to  me, 
Fairer  than  Isaac's  lover  at  the  well, 
Brighter  than  Inside  bark  of  new-hewn  cedar, 
Sweeter  than  flames  of  fine  perfumed  myrrh; 
And  comeller  than  the  silver  clouds  that  dance 
On  zephyr's  wings  before  the  King  of  Heaven. 

Cusay.  Is  It  not  Bethsabe  the  Hethite's  wife, 
Urias,  now  at  Rabath  siege  with  Joab? 

David.  Go  now  and  bring  her  quickly  to  the  king; 

Tell  her,  her  graces  have  found  grace  with  him. 

Cusay.  I  will,  my  lord.    {Exit.) 

David.  Bright  Bethsabe  shall  wash  in  David's  bower 
In  water  mixed  with  purest  almond  flower, 
And  bathe  her  beauty  In  the  milk  of  kids; 
Bright  Bethsabe  gives  earth  to  my  desires. 
Verdure  to  earth,  and  to  that  verdure  flowers. 
To  flowers  sweet  odours,  and  to  odours  wings, 
That  carries  pleasures  to  the  hearts  of  kings. 

Now  comes  my  lover  tripping  like  the  roe. 
And  brings  my  longings  tangled  in  her  hair. 
To  'joy  her  love  I  '11  build  a  kingly  bower. 
Seated  in  hearing  of  a  hundred  streams. 
That,  for  their  homage  to  her  sovereign  joys. 
Shall,  as  the  serpents  fold  into  their  nests. 
In  oblique  turnings  wind  the  nimble  waves 
About  the  circles  of  her  curious  walks. 
And  with  their  murmur  summon  easeful  sleep, 
To  lap  his  golden  sceptre  on  her  brows. 

Lamb  condemns  the  work  as  a  whole,  but  speaks  with  ad- 
miration of  the  line  "  Seated  in  hearing  of  a  hundred  streams," 
which  Chambers  calls,  "indeed  a  noble  poetic  image,"  which 
is  almost  precisely  what  Spedding  says  with  regard  to  the 
same  line  in  one  of  Bacon's  hymns,  while  Hawkins,  in  his 
"Origin  of  the  English  Drama,"  gives  it  unstinted  praise, 
quoting  especially  the  lines  — 

At  him  the  thunder  shall  discharge  its  bolt, 
And  his  fair  spouse  with  bright  and  fiery  wings, 
Sit  ever  burning  in  his  hateful  robes;  — 

which  he  calls  "a  metaphor  worthy  of  iEschylus." 
The  opinion  that  these  compositions  are  above  Peele's 

477 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

mark  is  hardly  questionable,  but  if  ascribed  to  the  author  of 
the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  they  rank  well  with  those  of  in- 
ferior merit,  for  it  is  beyond  question  that  in  these  works  there 
are  wide  disparities,  of  which  "Andronicus"  and  "Hamlet" 
are  good  illustrations. 

Of  "King  Edward  First,"  which  is  preserved  in  a  mutilated 
form,  and  which  has  been  thought  by  some  to  belong  to  the 
"Shakespeare"  historical  dramas,  it  is  necessarily  unsatis- 
factory on  account  of  its  imperfections.  That  works  of  the 
Elizabethan  period  have  been  erroneously  accredited  to  au- 
thors cannot  be  doubted.  Bullen  says,  for  instance,  of  "Sir 
Clyomon  and  Sir  Clamydes";  — 

I  strongly  doubt  whether  it  has  been  properly  assigned  to 
Peele,  —  I  suspect  that  it  was  written  by  some  such  person  as 
Richard  Edwards,  when  Peele  was  in  his  teens. ^ 

Were  it  not  for  the  strong  individuality  stamped  in  varying 
degrees  upon  all  the  "  Shakespeare  "dramas,  which  have  found 
a  place  in  the  Canon,  it  is  probable  that  several  would  have 
been  discarded. 

We  have  given  the  reader,  who,  at  the  sacrifice  of  time  and 
patience,  has  accompanied  us  thus  far,  as  brief  a  view  as  possi- 
ble of  these  misprized  works  of  still  questioned  parentage,  in 
order  that  he  might  get  a  fair  understanding  of  their  relation- 
ship to  the  greatest  of  literary  problems.  He  will  have  seen  by 
this  time  that  the  gist  of  our  thesis  is,  that  they,  and  the  canon- 
ized works  which  we  have  discussed,  are  all  the  work,  some 
of  it  immature,  of  one  man,  who  "  took  all  knowledge  as  his 
province,"  and  devoted  his  best  energies  to  an  Advancement 
of  Learning  which  was  the  crying  need  of  his  time.  We  realize 
that  it  devolves  upon  us  to  furnish  the  reader  with  convinc- 
ing evidence  of  this,  and  we  hope  to  do  so  should  he  continue 
to  accord  us  his  companionship. 

1  The  Works  of  George  Peele,   London,  1888. 


XIV 

MASKS 

ROBERT  GREENE 

Was  a  boon  companion  of  Peele  and  a  profligate  of  the  vilest 
type,  quite  the  equal  of  Peele  in  evil  courses.  The  date  of  his 
birth  is  not  known  with  certainty.  He  is  said  to  have  been  born 
at  Norwich;  Dyce  places  the  date  at  1550,  and  Grosart,  at 
1560.  We  are  told  that  he  entered  as  a  sizar  at  St.  John's, 
Cambridge,  in  1578,  leaving,  says  Grosart,  in  1585.  He  de- 
nominates him  "  a  cleric,"  and  "  red  nosed  minister,"  assert- 
ing that  he  was  Vicar  of  Lollesbury,  Essex,  in  1584.^  Foster 
("Alumni  Oxonienses")  records  him  as  being  "incorporated  at 
Oxford  1588."  He  left  an  autobiographical  sketch  printed  in 
1596.  In  it,  after  describing  some  of  his  villainies  he  naively 
says :  — 

Young  yet  in  years,  though  old  in  wickedness,  I  began  to  re- 
solve that  there  was  nothing  bad  that  was  not  profitable;  where- 
upon I  grew  so  rooted  in  all  mischief,  that  I  had  as  great  a 
delight  in  wickedness  as  sundry  have  in  godliness,  and  as  much 
felicity  I  took  in  villany  as  others  did  in  honesty. 

A  recent  biographer,  following  for  the  most  part  Greene's 
own  account,  says :  — 

That  Greene  was  married  is  certain,  —  Dyce  thinks  in  1586,  — 
and  it  is  as  certain,  that  although  on  his  own  authority  his  wife 
was  a  most  amiable  and  loving  woman,  he  ere  long  forsook  her 
to  indulge  without  restraint  his  passion  for  debauchery  and 
every  species  of  self-indulgence.  After  leaving  his  wife,  he  lived 
with  a  woman,  the  sister  of  an  infamous  character,  well  known 
then  under  the  name  of  **  Cutting  Ball,"  and  by  her  he  had  a  son 
who  died  in  the  year  after  his  father.   After  leading  one  of  the 

*  A.  B.  Grosart,  The  Life  and  Complete  Works  of  Robert  Greene.  London,  1887. 

479 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

maddest  lives  on  record,  he  died  a  miserable  death  on  the  3d  of 
September,  1592,  his  last  illness  being  caused  by  a  debauch.  On 
his  deathbed  he  was  deserted  by  all  his  former  boon  conpanions 
except  his  mistress,  and  was  indebted  to  the  wife  of  a  poor  shoe- 
maker for  the  last  bed  on  which  he  laid  his  miserable  body  —  his 
dying  injunction  to  his  compassionate  and  admiring  hostess  be- 
ing to  crown  his  vain  head  after  death  with  a  garland  of  bays. 
This  request,  it  seems,  the  poor  woman  attended  to.^ 

Yet  Grosart  was  influenced  by  a  single  passage  in  "Selimus" 
to  accredit  it  to  Greene.  This  is  his  remarkable  confession: 
"One  specific  passage  by  itself  would  have  determined  me  as- 
signing 'Selimus'  to  Greene."  He  could  have  found  scores  to 
have  warranted  him  equally  in  assigning  it  to  Spenser. 

A  number  of  works  have  been  assigned  him,  the  authorship 
of  which  even  his  biographers  question.  Professor  Brown  de- 
clares that  "in  style  .  .  .  Greene  is  father  of  Shakespeare"; 
that  "'James  IV'  Is  the  first  Elizabethan  historical  play  out- 
side Shakespeare,  and  is  worthy  to  be  placed  on  a  level  with 
Shakespeare's  earlier  style";  and  he  thinks  "Shakespeare 
followed  Greene's  example  in  the  'Taming  of  the  Shrew'  and 
'Midsummer  Night's  Dream'";  Tieck,  who  translated  the 
"Pinner  of  Wakefield"  declares  it  to  be  "one  of  Shakespeare's 
juvenile  productions." 

CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

Was,  if  possible,  a  greater  reprobate  than  his  pot-compan- 
ions, for  to  his  evil  accomplishments  was  added  the  temper  of 
the  bravo.  Even  less  is  known  about  him  than  of  Peele  or  of 
Greene.  He  is  said  to  have  been  the  son  of  a  shoemaker,  John 
Marlowe,  born  at  Canterbury,  February,  1563-64,  and  granted 
the  degree  of  B.A.  in  1585,  and  M.A.  in  1587,  at  Benet  College, 
Cambridge ;  went  to  London  shortly  after  he  became  an  actor, 
but,  it  is  said,  had  to  resign,  having  broken  his  leg  "in  a  lewd 
scene."  His  career  was  brief,  as  he  died  June  i,  1593,  a  few 

*  The  Works  of  the  British  Dramatists,  p.  77.  New  York,  n.d. 

480 


MASKS 

months  after  Greene.  The  account  of  his  death  by  Vaughan  is 
as  follows :  — 

It  so  happened,  that  at  Deptford,  a  Httle  village  about  three 
miles  from  London,  as  he  (Marlowe)  meant  to  stab  with  his 
poignard  one  named  Archer  that  had  invited  him  thither  to  a 
feast,  and  was  then  playing  at  tables;  he  (Archer)  quickly  per- 
ceiving it,  so  avoided  the  thrust,  that  withal  drawing  out  his 
dagger  for  his  own  defence,  he  stabbed  this  Marlowe  in  the  eye 
in  such  sort,  that  his  brains  coming  out  at  the  dagger's  point,  he 
shortly  after  died. 

Another  authority  says  that  it  was  Marlowe's  own  dagger 
which  Archer  turned  against  him;  and  from  Mere's  "Wit's 
Treasury"  we  learn  that  Archer  was  "  a  bawdy  serving  man,  a 
rival  of  his  lewd  love."  ^ 

To  Marlowe,  as  to  Peele  and  Greene,  it  has  been  convenient 
for  editors  to  accredit  unfathered  works.  As  "Tamburlaine" 
was  a  very  early  work,  to  account  for  its  supposed  authorship 
by  Marlowe,  he  is  said  to  have  writtien  it  before  leaving  college. 
In  the  case  of  Marlowe  we  are  disturbed  by  the  same  clash  of 
opinions  that  we  have  seen  in  that  of  Peele  and  Greene.  Lee 
unwittingly  delights  us  by  this  decisive  pronouncement :  — 

Kyd  and  Greene,  among  rival  writers  of  tragedy,  left  more 
or  less  definite  impression  on  all  Shakespeare's  early  efforts  in 
tragedy.  It  was,  however,  only  to  two  of  his  fellow  dramatists 
that  his  indebtedness  as  a  writer  of  either  comedy  or  tragedy 
was  material  or  emphatically  defined.  Superior  as  Shakespeare's 
powers  were  to  those  of  Marlowe,  his  coadjutor  in  "Henry  VI," 
his  early  tragedies  often  reveal  him  in  the  character  of  a  faithful 
disciple  of  that  vehement  delineator  of  tragic  passion.  Shake- 
speare's early  comedies  disclose  a  like  relationship  between  him 
and  Lyly.^ 

Also  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  says  Lee :  — 

There  is  internal  proof  that  Marlowe  worked  on  earlier  plays 
of  Shakespeare.  .  .  .  All  the  blank  verse  in  Shakespeare's  early 
plays  bear  the  stamp  of  Marlowe's  inspiration. 

^  William  Vaughan,  The  Golden  Grove.  London,  1600.   Cf.  Grosart. 
2  Lee,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare ^  p.  61. 

481 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 
Says  White:  — 

The  "Taming  of  the  Shrew"  is  the  joint  production  of  Greene, 
Marlowe,  and  possibly  Shakespeare. 

Says  Ingram  ("Marlowe  and  his  Associates''):  — 

His  words  and  thoughts  are  so  noble,  and  his  sentiments  so 
lofty,  that  the  mind  revolts  at  seeing  his  name  coupled  with  the 
debauched  and  dissolute  desperadoes  it  has  been  customary  to 
link  it  with.^ 

If  space  permitted  we  could  fill  many  pages  with  such 
utterly  misleading  opinions,  and  a  volume  could  be  written 
showing  the  works  unwarrantably  attributed  to  him  to  be 
saturated  with  thoughts  which  found  expression  in  works  of 
"Shakespeare"  and  Bacon.  While  we  have  already  spoken  of 
this,  we  should  call  attention  to  a  notable  instance  of  it  in 
the  "Taming  of  a  Shrew"  published  in  1594.  This  play  dis- 
closes the  fact  that  it  contains  passage  after  passage  duplicat- 
ing parts  of  "Marlowe's"  "Tamburlaine"  and  "Faustus." 
We  quote  but  two :  — 

Eternal  heaven  sooner  be  dissolved, 
And  all  that  pierceth  Phoebus'  silver  eye, 
Before  such  hap  befall  to  Pollidor. 

Taming  of  a  Shrew,  iii,  6. 

Eternal  Heaven  sooner  be  dissolv'd, 
And  all  that  pierceth  Phoebus'  silver  eye, 
Before  such  hap  fall  to  Zenocrate. 

Tamburlaine,  in,  2. 

Thou  shalt  have  garments  wrought  of  Median  silk, 
Enchas't  with  precious  Jewels  fetcht  from  far. 

Taming  of  a  Shrew,  in,  2. 

Thy  garments  shall  be  made  of  Median  silk, 
Enchas't  with  precious  jewels  of  mine  own. 

Tamburlaine,  i,  2. 

1  Cf .  Rev.  Alexander  Dyce,  The  Works  of  Christopher  Marlowe,  p.  xxv.  Lon- 
don, 1850. 

482 


MASKS 

The  perplexed  critics  have  generally  avoided  falling  into 
the  trap  of  calling  this  plagiarism,  realizing  that  contempo- 
rary writers  for  the  same  audience  would  hardly  venture  to 
copy  from  each  other  word  for  word,  and  so  they  have  juggled 
with  various  theories,  one  being  that  Marlowe  wrote  the 
"Taming  of  a  Shrew."  It  should  be  noticed  that  this  Quarto 
held  public  attention  until  the  publication  of  the  Folio  in 
1623,  twenty-ftine  years  after  its  publication,  when  the  play 
appeared,  like  many  other  of  the  "Shakespeare"  plays,  re- 
written and  improved,  as  if  by  the  maturer  hand  of  its  author, 
the  being  substituted  for  a  in  the  title.  This  furnished  an  op- 
portunity for  theorists  to  call  the  "Taming  of  a  Shrew"  an 
"old  play";  but  here  they  met  with  difficulties,  because  the 
story  of  Sly  and  so  many  other  parts  of  the  text  of  the  Quarto 
are  preserved  in  the  Folio.  The  conclusion  therefore  is, 
"Shakespeare"  helped  another  man  to  rewrite  it.  This  is 
what  White  says:  "In  the  'Taming  of  the  Shrew'  three  hands 
are  at  least  traceable ;  that  of  the  author  of  the  old  play,  that 
of  Shakespeare  himself,  and  that  of  a  co-laborer."  ^ 

Says  Lee :  "  Evidence  of  style  —  the  liberal  introduction  of 
tags  of  Latin  and  the  exceptional  beat  of  the  doggerel  — 
makes  it  difficult  to  allot  the  Bianca  scenes  to  Shakespeare; 
those  scenes  were  probably  due  to  a  coadjutor."  ^ 

Since  Bacon's  authorship  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  has 
become  so  widely  acknowledged,  the  impossible  theory  has 
been  advanced  that  he  and  the  actor  collaborated,  but  we  ask 
again,  is  not  all  this  theorizing  put  to  rest  by  regarding  the 
"Taming  of  a  Shrew,"  and  other  early  productions,  as  the  less 
mature  work  of  an  author  who  later  improved  them,  and  that 
some  of  the  "imperfections"  are  due  to  playwrights  who 
staged  the  plays,  or  actors  who  indulged  in  improvisation? 
With  respect  to  the  amusing  story  of  Sly,  which  is  a  para- 

^  Richard  Grant  White,  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare,  Intro,  to  the 
Taming  of  the  Shrew.   1865. 

2  Sidney  Lee,  A  Life  of  William  Shakespeare^  p.  164. 

483 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

phrase  of  a  story  of  Philip  the  Good,  Stratfordians  once  made 
a  great  deal.  Even  the  "inn  on  the  heath"  kept  by  "Marian 
Racket,  the  fat  alewife  of  Wincot,"was  exhibited  to  the  devo- 
tee; but  alas!  the  "literary  antiquary"  has  upset  even  this, 
and  Sly  is  no  more  a  Warwickshire  man  and  neighbor  of 
the  actor.  With  respect  to  "  Faustus,"  from  which  we  have 
quoted,  a  singular  fact  has  hitherto  escaped  attention.  We 
find  it  entered  on  the  Stationers'  Register,  January  7,  1600, 
by  Thomas  Bushell,  Bacon's  favorite  disciple  and  "  servant," 
and  he  held  the  copyright  until  September  13,  1610,  when  he 
assigned  it  to  J.  Wright.  Bushell  was  young  and  needy,  and 
as  Bacon  was  always  assisting  him,  what  more  natural  for 
Bacon,  who  was  then  financially  straitened,  than  to  give  him 
the  manuscript  of  one  of  his  early  works,  on  which  he  might 
obtain  a  loan  or  a  royalty  ?  This  seems  worthy  of  considera- 
tion. 

THOMAS    KYD 

One  of  the  most  lawless  assumptions  in  literary  criticism  of 
recent  years  is  the  introduction  to  a  patient  public  of  the  au- 
thor of  the  "  Shakespeare"  Works  in  the  role  of  an  understudy 
to  Thomas  Kyd.  It  is  an  offense  that  ought  to  be  actionable 
in  any  court  of  good-breeding;  yet  Lee  thrusts  "the  sportive 
Kyd "  upon  our  attention  with  a  persistence  that  finally  ex- 
cites amusement,  though  our  English  kinsmen  prefer  to  adjust 
their  monocles  and  regard  the  deft  showman,  as  he  springs  his 
favorite  jack-in-the-box  upon  them,  as  they  do  the  perennial 
suffragette,  with  evident  admiration.  Who  is  Thomas  Kyd  ? 
Nobody  knew  a  few  years  ago,  but,  to  get  him  into  line,  a 
genealogy  was  fashioned  for  him  which  would  surprise  a 
trained  genealogist  like  Fitz  Waters,  or  Colonel  Chester.  It  is 
easy  to  find  a  name  repeated  at  any  period  within  a  compara- 
tively short  range  of  time.  We  know  that  in  Warwickshire  the 
Stratford  actor  had  several  contemporaries  bearing  his  name, 
and  in  Scotland  the  same  may  be  said  of  Walter  Scott.  In  the 

484 


MASKS 

case  of  Kyd  we  may  anticipate  at  any  time  a  bulky  volume 
of  fatherless  works,  which  for  centuries  have  haunted  the 
limbo  of  the  unknown,  brought  out  and  groomed  as  his  off- 
spring, for  there  is  no  knowing  what  may  not  happen  when 
imaginative  minds  get  to  work  in  a  field  so  attractive  as 
he  offers.  "Yet,"  says  Boas,  speaking  of  "The  Spanish 
Tragedy":  — 

This  is  the  only  drama  which  can  be  with  certainty  ascribed  to 
Kyd,  except  his  paraphrase  of  "Cornelia"  by  the  French  writer, 
Garner.  It  is  possible  that  he  wrote  "Seliman  and  Perseda," 
whose  theme  is  briefly  introduced,  as  "a  play  within  the  play" 
into  "The  Spanish  Tragedy."  The  "First  Part  of  Jeronlmo" 
may  have  come  from  his  hand.  It  deals  with  the  events  preced- 
ing the  story  of  "The  Spanish  Tragedy,"  and  may  have  been 
composed  by  Kyd  before  the  more  elaborate  work.  But  this  is 
conjectural,  and  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  view  that 
"Jeronimo"  is  an  expansion  in  dramatic  form  of  the  opening 
narrative  in  "The  Spanish  Tragedy"  of  an  anonymous  play- 
wright, anxious  to  make  capital  out  of  the  popularity  of  the 
subject. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  conjectures  respecting  sup- 
posed works  of  Kyd  have  already  begun.  It  will  be  easy  for  a 
man  like  Lee  to  convert  these  guesses  into  certainties.  With 
respect  to  his  genealogy  Boas  says :  — 

It  has  been  recently  suggested  with  great  plausibility,  that 
the  dramatist  may  be  identified  with  the  Thomas  Kydd,  son  of 
Francis,  scrivener,  entered  at  Merchant  Taylor's  School,  October 
26,  1565.  In  this  case  Nash's  famous  reference  in  the  preface  to 
Green's  "Menaphon"  to  "the  shifting  companions  that  leave  the 
trade  of  Noverint  whereto  they  were  born  and  busie  themselves 
with  the  endeavours  of  art,"  probably  alludes  to  Kyd,  and  not  to 
Shakspere,  as  has  been  sometimes  supposed.-^ 

This  is  all  the  grossest  speculation,  but  while  Boas  is  cau- 
tious about  committing  himself  too  positively,  such  guesses 

^  See  further  on  this  subject  Thomas  Kyd  und  sein  Kreis,  by  Gregor  Sarrazin, 
chaps.  II  and  v.  Shakspere  and  his  Predecessors,  by  Frederick  S.  Boas,  M.A.,  p. 
62.  New  York,  1910.  Cf.  Boas,  The  Works  of  Thomas  Kyd.  Oxford,  1901. 

485 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

are  already  crystallizing  into  positive  statements,  and  their 
scope  is  being  enlarged.  As  the  term  "noverint,"  which  we 
have  elsewhere  explained  was  intended  to  signify  that  the  per- 
son to  whom  it  was  applied  was  a  lawyer,  it  should  alone  in- 
validate this  futile  specimen  of  dreary  speculation,  unless  valid 
proof  can  be  adduced  to  sustain  his  connection  with  the  pro- 
fession. It  may  be  observed  that,  while  they  were  living,  the 
names  of  these  men  were  unknown  on  the  title-pages  of  the 
books  now  accredited  to  them.  Would  they  not  have  been  only 
too  glad  to  have  their  names  exploited  on  title-pages,  instead 
of  having  to  content  themselves  with  nominal  authorship 
among  contemporaries .? 

BURTON 

The  ** Anatomy  of  Melancholy"  first  appeared  in  1621 
under  the  pen-name  of  "Democritus,  Jr.,"  and  contained  an 
"Address  to  the  Reader"  of  72  pages  and  783  numbered  pages 
ending  with  "Finis."  Bound  with  it  is  an  "Epilogue"  of  six 
pages  unnumbered  in  which  are  these  words,  "The  last  section 
shall  be  mine  to  cut  the  strings  of  Democritus'  vizor,  to  un- 
maske  and  show  him  as  he  is."  This  is  dated,  "From  my 
studie  in  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  December  5,  1620,"  and 
signed  "Robert  Burton."  No  other  edition  has  these  leaves, 
which  do  not  appear  to  form  any  part  of  the  book,  but  to  have 
been  added  after  printing  as  an  afterthought.  Strangely 
enough  in  his  Address  the  author  makes  this  startling  state- 
ment, "I  will  yet  to  satisfie  and  please  myselfe,  make  an 
Utopia  of  mine  owne,  a  new  Atlantis ,  a  poetical  commonwealth 
of  mine  owne,  in  which  I  will  freely  domineere,  build  cities, 
make  lawes,  statues,  as  I  list  myselfe";  which  is  just  what 
Bacon  did  not  long  after  in  his  **New  Atlantis." 

The  "Anatomy"  seems  to  have  been  the  only  book  pub- 
lished under  Burton's  name,  though  in  his  will  he  left  his  ex- 
ecutor to  dispose  of  "  all  such  Books  as  are  written  with  my 
own  hand."   He  also  left  for  disposal  "half  my  Melancholy 

486 


^/l^'f^^    A     -^^  -^ 


TREATISE   OF 


MELANCHOLIE. 


yCa. 


CONTAINING    THE     CAVSES 

thercofy  &  rcafcn*.  of  the  ftrange  eff<.  ds  it  woikctU 

in  our  mind^  and  bodies:  wuh  the  phifit  ke  curc,and 

Ipuituall  coniolatioii  for  fiichas  hauc  ihcreioad* 

loyncd  an  afiRiftcd  conlciencc. 

I'he  difference  betwixt  it ,  andweUnthoUe  vlth  diuetff 

bhiiofjphicall  dtfcourfrt  touchingaFttons^and  af» 

feSions  offonie^fftiritt  dud  Udy:  the  f  4r- 

ficuUrs  vheteofare  to  bcfecnt 

Lt  fere' the  booke. 

By  T.Brighf  Dodor  of  PhiHckci^ 


ffrnwaom 
■^  1/ 


Imprinted  at  London  by  Thotnai  Vautrol'^ 
licr,  dwelling  in  the  Black* 
ftiws.    1585. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Copy  for  Crips  hath  the  other  half."  "Crips"  was  the  pub- 
lisher. ^ 

Was  Burton  the  real  author  of  this  work?  In  the  British 
Museum  is  a  copy  of  a  book  published  in  1586,  entitled  "A 
Treatise  of  Melancholie,"  by  T.  Bright.  We  here  give  a  photo- 
graph of  its  title-page  made  for  us  from  this  particular  copy. 
It  is  noticeable  that  Bright,  who  was  a  writer  as  well  as  an 
M.D.,  resided  at  Cambridge  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  and 
was  an  admirer  of  Lady  Burghley,  the  sister  of  Lady  Bacon. 
He  died  in  161 5.  Burton  in  sketches  of  his  Hfe  is  said  to  have 
received  his  inspiration  for  the  "Anatomy"  from  him.  Burton 
died  in  1640-41.  In  the  "Cipher"  we  are  told  that  both 
Bright  and  Burton  were  names  under  which  Bacon  wrote,  and 
that  the  different  editions  contain  different  (cipher)  stories.  ^ 

At  the  time  the  "Treatise"  was  published.  Burton  was  but 
eleven  years  of  age.  The  inference  from  this  would  be  that  the 
"Treatise"  was  rewritten  and  enlarged  in  162 1,  and  published 
as  the  "Anatomy"  under  the  pseudonym  "Democritus"  as 
Burton's  work,  one  half  of  the  copyright  of  which  he  owned  in 
partnership  with  the  printer. 

*  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  p.  viii.  Democritus,  Jr.  Philadelphia,  1853. 
Cf.  Memoir  in  edition  of  Burton's  Anatomy  of  1800.  Nichols's  Leicester- 
shire, vol.  Ill,  p.  415.  Hearne's  Reliquia,  vol.  i,  p.  288. 

2  The  Biliteral  Cipher  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon  (Introduction). 


XV 

THUMB  MARKS 

The  thumb  mark  has  come  to  be  recognized  as  infallible 
evidence  of  personal  identity;  in  fact,  there  is  no  other  evi- 
dence in  our  day  of  equal  importance  in  determining  identity; 
hence  our  application  of  the  term  in  an  investigation  of  what 
we  believe  to  be  the  thumb  marks  of  Francis  Bacon  upon  the 
Folio  of  1623  and  elsewhere. 

One  who  studies  the  works  published  under  the  name  of 
Bacon,  and  those  under  the  name  "Shakespeare,"  finds  him- 
self at  the  end  face  to  face  with  an  astounding  problem.  Here 
are  the  same  thoughts  often  expressed  in  the  same  manner, 
or  modified  to  suit  the  occasion ;  and  since  he  knows  the  im- 
possibility of  two  minds  thinking  the  same  thoughts,  and 
expressing  them  in  like  manner,  though  subject  to  differ- 
ent experiences  through  life,  he  is  forced  to  the  convic- 
tion that  these  works,  though  published  under  different 
names,  are  the  product  of  one  mind.  Let  us  consider  a  few 
examples :  — 

"The  Tempest"  discloses  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  sea- 
faring terms,  and  the  handling  of  a  ship.  In  this  play  we  find 
the  knowledge  which  Bacon  displays  in  his  treatises  entitled, 
"The  Sailing  of  Ships";  "Versions  of  Bodies";  "Heat  and 
Cold";  "Dense  and  Rare";  "The  Ebb  and  Flow  of  the  Sea"; 
and  the  "History  of  the  Winds."  "The  Tempest"  was  one  of 
his  last,  perhaps  his  very  last  drama,  and  these  treatises  were 
the  result  of  his  later  studies.  Bacon  was  associated  with 
Southampton  and  others  on  the  voyage  which  forms  the  sub- 
ject of  this  drama.   Two  copies  of  Strachey's  "Historic  of 

489 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Travaile  into  Virginia '*  still  exist,  one  dedicated  to  Bacon,  and 
the  other  to  Sir  Allen  Apsley.^ 

A  scene  in  "  King  Henry  VI "  is  laid  in  the  Temple  Gardens. 
In  this  scene  the  rights  to  claimants  to  the  throne  are  mooted. 

Yorke.  (Plan)  Great  Lords  and  Gentlemen,  what  meanes  this  silence  ? 
Dare  no  man  answer  in  a  Case  of  Truth? 

Suff,   Within  the  Temple  Hall  we  were  too  low; 
The  Garden  here  is  more  convenient. 

The  scene  ends  thus :  — 

Yorke.  Thanks,  gentle  sirs. 

Come,  let  us  foure  to  Dinner;  I  dare  say 
This  Quarrel  will  drink  Blood  another  day. 

11,4. 

"This  reference  to  the  Temple  Gardens,"  says  Edward  J. 
Castle,  Q.C.,  of  the  Temple,  "not  saying  whether  the  Inner 
or  the  Middle  Temple  is  meant,  curiously  enough  points  to 
the  writer  being  a  member  of  Gray's  Inn.  An  Inner  or  a  Mid- 
dle Temple  man  would  have  given  his  Inn  its  proper  title."  ^ 
Francis  Bacon  was  a  member  of  Gray's  Inn. 

Two  of  the  rules  handed  down  for  centuries  prescribed  that 
members  should  dine  in  fellowship  of  four,  and  should  main- 
tain absolute  silence.  As  the  knowledge  of  these  rules  was  con- 
fined to  the  members,  how  could  the  actor  be  so  well  informed 
about  them,  or  why  should  he  be  interested  in  them  ?  They 
are  evidently  the  unstudied  expression  of  a  mind  having  daily 
familiarity  with  them. 

In  the  same  play  is  a  dialogue  between  Joan  of  Arc  and  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy.  The  scene  discloses  Burgundy  as  an  ally 
of  the  English,  marching  toward  Paris.  He  is  met  by  a  herald 
of  the  King  of  France,  who  demands  a  parley  which  is  granted. 

^  Sloane  MSS.  No.  1622,  Brit.  Museum.  Ashmolean  MSS.  No.  1754.    Cf. 
The  History e  of  the  Bermudaes.  Hakluyt  Society,  London,  1882. 
*  A  Study^  etc.,  p.  65. 

490 


THUMB  MARKS 

The  French  King  is  accompanied  by  Joan  of  Arc,  who  makes 
a  fervent  appeal  to  Burgundy  to  break  his  alliance  with  the 
English  and  espouse  the  cause  of  France.  This  dialogue  is  es- 
pecially interesting  as  it  was  unknown  in  history,  and  was 
supposed  to  be  a  creation  of  the  dramatist's  brain  until  1780, 
when  a  letter  was  discovered  and  printed,  dated  July  17, 1429, 
written  by  Joan  to  the  Duke,  which  makes  precisely  such  an 
appeal  to  him  as  is  found  in  the  play,  but  anticipates  his  de- 
fection from  the  cause  of  his  ally.  It  would  seem  impossible 
for  the  actor  to  know  of  this  secret  history,  but  to  Bacon, 
student  and  poet  at  the  French  Court,  it  would  strongly  ap- 
peal and  leave  its  impress  upon  his  sensitive  memory. 

This  play  was  printed  twice  during  the  actor's  life,  and  also 
three  years  after  his  death,  and  in  every  edition  appeared  this 
appeal  of  Judge  Say  to  Cade,  who  had  captured  and  con- 
demned him  to  death :  — 

Kent  in  the  Commentaries  Caesar  writ, 
Is  term'd  the  civelst  place  in  all  this  Isle; 
Then,  noble  countryman,  hear  me  but  speak, 
I  sold  not  Maine,  I  lost  not  Normandie. 

Is  it  not  remarkable  that  in  1623,  two  years  after  Bacon's 
impeachment  and  six  years  after  the  actor's  death,  this  appeal 
appeared  in  the  Folio  with  fifteen  lines  added  in  which  the 
chief  points  of  Bacon's  case  are  exposed  ?  They  are  as  follows : — 

Say.  Heare  me  but  speake,  and  beare  mee  wher'e  you  will: 
Kent,  in  the  Commentaries  Csesar  writ, 
Is  term'd  the  civel'st  place  of  all  this  Isle; 
Sweet  is  the  Country,  because  full  of  Riches, 
The  People  Liberall,  Valiant,  Active,  Wealthy, 
Which  makes  me  hope  you  are  not  void  of  pitty. 
I  sold  not  Maine,  I  lost  not  Normandie, 
Yet  to  recover  them  would  loose  my  life: 
Justice  with  favour  have  I  alwayes  done, 
Prayres  and  Teares  have  mov'd  me,  Gifts  could  never. 
When  have  I  ought  exacted  at  your  hands? 
Kent  to  maintaine,  the  King,  the  Realme  and  you. 
Large  gifts  have  I  bestow'd  on  learned  Clearkes, 

491 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Because  my  Booke  preferr'd  me  to  the  King. 
And  seeing  Ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God, 
Knowledge  the  Wing  wherewith  we  flye  to  heaven. 
Unlesse  you  be  possest  with  divellish  spirits, 
You  cannot  but  forbeare  to  murther  me: 
This  Tongue  hath  parlied  unto  Forraigne  Kings 
For  your  behoof e. 

2  Henry  VI,  iv,  7. 

Here  we  have  set  forth  the  points  in  Bacon's  case  which, 

first,  are  a  refutation  of  the  charge  of  bribery,  which  it  should 

he  noted  is  irrelevant^  as  in  the  play  no  such  charge  is  made; 

second,  reference  to  his  liberality  to  subordinates;  third,  to 

his  book,  which  "preferr'd  me  to  the  King"  ;^  and  fourth,  how 

his 

Tongue  had  parlied  unto  Forraigne  Kings 
For  your  behoof e. 

These  lines,  too,  are  distinctively  Baconian :  — 

And  seeing  Ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God 
Knowledge  the  Wing  wherewith  we  flye  to  heaven. 

How  can  this  be  accounted  for  unless  by  ascribing  the  ad- 
ditional lines  to  the  real  author  of  the  play  when  he  made  his 
revisal  of  it  for  the  Folio? 

Not  long  ago  Laing  and  others,  finding  that  Romano  was 
only  referred  to  as  a  painter,  hastily  rushed  into  print  with  the 
discovery  that  the  author  of  "The  Winter's  Tale"  had  made 
"the  egregious  blunder  of  calling  him  a  sculptor."  Vasari,  his 
contemporary,  and  the  best  of  authorities,  called  him  only  a 
painter.  Even  Churton  Collins,  in  the  Reprint  from  the  First 
Folio,  classes  this  allusion  to  Romano  among  his  author's 
blunders,  which  would  have  passed  unquestioned  had  not  a 
copy  of  the  Italian  original  of  Vasari,  pubHshed  in  1550,  been 
discovered.  In  this  is  a  Latin  epitaph  which  was  upon  Ro- 
mano's tomb  in  the  Church  of  St.  Barnabas,  and  which  lauded 
him  for  his   achievements  in  "painting,  architecture,  and 

^  The  Advancement  of  Learnings  dedicated  to  King  James. 

492 


THUMB  MARKS 

sculpture''    In  Vasari's  edition  of  1568,  and  all  subsequent 
editions,  this  was  omitted;  hence,  the  discovery. 

How,  it  will  be  asked,  came  the  author  of  "  The  Winter's  Tale" 
to  be  familiar  with  such  a  bit  of  obscure  learning?  Professor 
Elze  settles  the  question  by  saying  that  he  must  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  this  obscure  book,  never  translated,  and  super- 
seded by  the  enlarged  work  of  eighteen  years  later,  or  he  had 
been  in  Mantua  and  had  known  of  Romano's  works.  How 
could  the  sordid  and  dissolute  actor,  living  in  Stratford  when 
this  play  was  written,  have  been  familiar  enough  with  Romano 
to  use  his  name  in  this  facile  manner  ? 

The  Princesse  hearing  of  her  Mother's  Statue  (which  is  in  the  keeping 
of  Paulina)  a  Peece  many  yeares  in  doing,  and  now  newly  performed, 
by  the  rare  Italian  Master,  Julio  Romano,  who  (had  he  himselfe  Eter- 
nitie,  and  could  put  Breath  into  his  Worke)  would  beguile  Nature  of 
her  Custome,  so  perfectly  is  he  her  Ape:  He  so  neere  to  Hermoine,  hath 
done  Hermoine,  that  they  say  one  would  speake  to  her,  and  stand  in 
hope  of  answer. 

The  Winter^ s  Tale,  v,  2. 

In  this  same  play  occurs  the  following:  — 

{Bohemia.  A  desert  country  near  the  sea.) 
Enter  Antigonus,  a  Mariner,  Babe,  Sheepherd  and  Clozvne. 
Ant,  Thou  art  perfect  then,  our  ship  hath  toucht  upon 

The  Desarts  of  Bohemia. 
Mar.  I  (my  Lord)  and  feare 

We  have  Landed  in  ill  time;  the  skies  look  grimly. 

Ibid.,  Ill,  3. 

Ben  Jonson  told  Drummond  that  "  Shakspere  wanted  arte" ; 
and  that  "in  a  play,  brought  in  a  number  of  men  saying  they 
had  suffered  shipwreck  in  Bohemia,  wher  y'  is  no  sea  neer  by 
some  100  miles."  ^ 

All  the  commentators  have  quoted  this,  some  for  the  pur- 
pose of  fortifying  the  impossible  theory,  already  noted,  that, 
although  ignorant,  his  transcendent  genius  was  sufficient  to 
account  for  his  authorship  of  the  great  dramas.  The  result  is 

1  C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.,  Centurie  of  Prayse,  p.  129.   London,  1879. 

493 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

that  this  apparent  slip  has  been  made  famous,  and  the  first 
always  quoted  by  them.  It  seems  unfortunate  that  in  the  par- 
ticular cases  they  have  selected  as  exhibits,  they  have  been  so 
careless,  for  there  are  many  errors  in  the  dramas,  though  per- 
haps less  conspicuous  than  this  seems  to  be.  It  is  strange,  too, 
that  they  never  undertook  to  study  the  obscure  and  tangled 
history  of  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Hungary,  Austria,  and  the 
various  petty  principalities  to  the  north  of  the  Adriatic; 
had  they  done  so  they  would  have  found  that  at  one  time 
it  was  quite  proper  to  lay  this  scene  in  "The  Winter's 
Tale"  on  the  seashore  of  Bohemia,  and  that  instead  of  show- 
ing that  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  was 
ignorant,  they  have  given  another  proof  of  his  remarkable 
learning. 

The  history  of  central  Europe  is  perplexing,  owing  to  con- 
tinual changes  in  the  boundaries  of  states  caused  by  conquests 
and  losses  of  different  rulers.  It  is  true,  however,  that  Ottokar 
in  1253  became  King  of  Bohemia,  whose  northern  shores  were 
then  swept  by  the  stormy  Baltic.  He  reigned  twenty-five 
years,  when  he  was  defeated  and  killed  on  the  Marchfeld  by 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  King  of  Germany.  Ottokar  had  ac- 
quired in  1252,  Austria;  in  1262,  Styria;  and  in  1269,  Carin- 
thia;  and  when  the  battle  of  Marchfeld  was  fought,  in  1278, 
the  great  Kingdom  of  Bohemia  extended  from  the  Baltic  on 
the  north  to  the  Adriatic  Sea  on  the  south,  thus  being  a 
maritime  country. 

Some  time  since  the  present  writer,  while  pursuing  the  study 
of  the  history  of  central  Europe  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  sketching  at  the  same  time  for  his  edification  a  map 
of  the  changes  taking  place  from  time  to  time  in  the  bound- 
aries of  different  states,  discovered  that  for  a  brief  period 
Bohemia  and  adjoining  states,  extending  from  the  Baltic  to 
the  Adriatic,  were  again  united  under  a  single  ruler.  This 
map,  which  he  then  sketched  and  submitted  to  a  friend  in  the 
University  of  Oxford  for  verification  will  show  this. 

494 


THUMB  MARKS 

The  story  which  this  illustrates  is  long  and  obscure,  but  we 
will  condense  it.  By  skilful  policies  and  fortunate  marriages, 
the  House  of  Hapsburg  at  an  early  day  managed  to  unite  vari- 
ous principalities  north  of  the  Adriatic,  and  thereby  established 
its  rule  over  an  immense  territory.  In  1491,  the  Emperor 
Maximilian  I,  by  marriage  with  Mary  of  Burgundy,  and  the 
abdication  of  Count 
Sigismund,  acquired  all 
the  Hapsburg  posses- 
sions. He  was  then 
Archduke  of  Austria, 
Duke  of  Styria,  Car- 
inthia,  and  Carniola, 
and  Count  of  Tyrol, 
besides  having  lands  in 
Swabia  and  Alsace.  He 
died  in  15 19.  His  son, 
Philip,  married  the 
Queen  of  Aragon  and 
Castile,  and  had  two 
sons,  Charles,  who,  in 
1516,  became  King  of 
Spain,  and  Ferdinand, 
who,  in  1519,  upon  the  death  of  his  grandfather,  became 
Archduke  of  Austria.  This  Ferdinand,  the  grandson  of  the 
Emperor  Maximilian,  by  marriage  in  1521  with  Anna,  the 
daughter  of  Ladislaus  H,  King  of  Bohemia  and  Hungary,  and 
in  1526  by  the  death  of  her  brother,  Louis  H,  became  King 
of  these  kingdoms,  which  again  united  the  various  countries 
bordering  on  the  Adriatic  Sea  under  one  ruler,  and  it  might 
be  represented  in  a  romantic  tale,  without  offense  to  poetic 
license,  that  Bohemia  again  had  an  outlet  to  the  sea. 

It  would  seem  by  this  that  the  author  of  "The  Winter's 
Tale**  was  better  versed  in  the  complicated  history  of  central 
Europe  than  Jonson,  or  the  Shaksperian  commentators.  We 

49S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

know  that  Bacon  was.  But  how  could,  or  why  should,  an  ob- 
scure actor,  writing  hurriedly,  as  his  biographers  tell  us,  solely 
for  gain,  and  ever  after  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  his  productions, 
know  about  the  tangled  history  of  the  states  of  central  Europe, 
or  the  perplexing  genealogy  of  its  royal  families  ?  It  may  be 
objected  that  Greene,  the  pseudo  author  of  "Pandosto,"  from 
which  "The  Winter's  Tale"  was  dramatized,  furnished  its  au- 
thor with  his  geography.  We  hope  to  show  later  that  Greene 
was  one  of  Bacon's  masks,  but  if  we  do  not,  our  contention 
that  Bacon  was  the  author  of  "The  Winter's  Tale"  will  not 
be  affected,  for  in  both  the  story  and  the  play  the  descrip- 
tion of  Bohemia's  seashore  is  correct.  We  suggest,  however, 
that  inasmuch  as  Greene  knew  little  of  history,  and  Bacon 
was  a  historian  facile  princeps,  the  objection  should  count 
in  favor  of  Bacon's  authorship  of  "Pandosto"  as  well 
as  its  dramatized  version,  since  both  state  an  obscure  fact 
not  likely  to  have  been  known  by  either  of  their  pseudo 
authors. 

Perhaps  too  much  space  has  been  given  to  what  some  may 
deem  a  trifling  matter,  but  our  justification  is,  that  since  so 
much  has  been  written  about  this  so-called  blunder  it  should  be 
given  a  quietus.  That  Francis  Bacon,  whose  association  with 
royalty  and  court  life  rendered  it  incumbent  upon  him  to 
know  the  intimate  history  of  the  royal  families  of  Europe, 
should  know  the  extent  of  the  realms  of  Ferdinand  I,  or  of  his 
predecessor,  Ottokar,  is  not  at  all  strange,  and  the  fact  that 
in  this  fanciful  story,  which  did  not  demand  accurate  geog- 
raphy any  more  than  the  romances  of  Anthony  Hope,  this  bit 
of  obscure  but  accurate  knowledge  should  slip  in  as  though 
unconsciously,  is  indeed  a  strong  proof  in  favor  of  Bacon's 
authorship  of  "The  Winter's  Tale."  It  may  be  suggestive  to 
mention,  that  Richard  II  of  England,  whose  family  history 
was  familiar  to  Bacon,  was  the  father-in-law  of  Anne,  daughter 
of  Charles  IV  of  Bohemia,  and  that  a  letter  in  Bacon's  own 
hand  to  the  Queen  of  Bohemia  still  exists. 

496 


THUMB  MARKS 

As  in  the  case  of  Bohemia  the  critics  have  harped  upon  the 
ignorance  displayed  in  the  following  passage  in  the  "Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona" :  — 

Verona  —  a  street, 

Sp.  ...  Saw  you  my  Master? 

Pro.    But  now  he  parted  hence  to  embarque  for  Millain. 

I,  I. 

Panth.    Launce,  away,  away;  a  Boorde:  thy  Master  is 

ship'd,  and  thou  art  to  post  after  with  oares,  away  asse. 

You'l  loose  the  Tide,  if  you  tarry  any  longer. 

...  I  meane  thou'lt  loose  the  flood. 
Laun.  ...  if  the  River 

were  drie,  I  am  able  to  fill  it  with  my  teares. 

11,3. 

Here  is  described  a  tidal  river  forming  a  traffic  communica- 
tion between  Verona  and  Milan.  That  this  was  impossible 
has  often  been  declared.  The  author  of  the  play,  however, 
seems  to  have  had  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
topography  of  the  region  than  modern  critics,  for,  in  the  fif- 
teenth century,  such  a  waterway  not  only  existed  between 
Verona  and  Milan,  but  between  the  latter  city  and  Ferrara,  as 
appears  in  the  "Life"  of  Beatrice  d'Este,  Duchess  of  Milan, 
and  passengers  passed  between  them  by  boats.  Is  it  conceiv- 
able that  the  Stratford  actor  was  as  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  ancient  topographical  conditions  of  this  remote  re- 
gion as  the  quotation  we  have  made  implies  J  This  is  a  ques- 
tion which  will  naturally  suggest  itself  to  the  reader. 

In  "Hamlet"  are  two  remarkable  instances  of  adherence  to 
erroneous  theories,  the  one  philosophic,  the  other  scientific. 
In  the  scene  where  Hamlet  upbraids  his  mother,  he  says :  — 

Sence  sure  you  have 
Els  could  you  not  have  motion. 

Ill,  2.  Quarto  of  1604. 

Reference  to  commentators  on  the  text  of  this  drama  dis- 
closes the  curious  opinions  they  have  held  on  the  meaning  of 

497 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

these  words.  In  1605  Bacon  published  his  "Advancement  of 
Learning,"  and  makes  no  correction  of  this  theory,  which  had 
long  been  held,  that  in  the  absence  of  sense  there  can  be  no 
motion,  but  in  1623,  when  he  republished  the  same  work,  he 
had  abandoned  it,  explaining  that  ignorance 

drove  some  of  the  ancient  philosophers  to  suppose  that  a  soul  was 
infused  into  all  bodies  without  distinction;  for  they  could  not  con- 
ceive how  there  could  be  motion  at  discretion  without  sense,  or 
sense  without  a  soul.^ 

In  the  First  Folio  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  published 
the  same  year,  the  lines  above  quoted  from  the  earlier  "  Ham- 
let" were  left  out.  By  whom  and  why  were  they  canceled  if 
not  by  Bacon,  who  was  then  seeing  his  "  Augmentis"  through 
Jaggard's  press  ? 

The  other  case  is  disclosed  in  the  following  lines:  — 

And  the  moist  Starre 
Upon  whose  influence  Neptune's  Empier  stands 
Was  sicke  almost  to  doomsday  with  eclipse. 

I,  I,  Ihid. 

We  here  see  that  in  1604  the  author  of  "Hamlet"  held  the 
popular  theory  that  the  motion  of  the  .tides  was  caused  by  the 
influence  of  the  moon  upon  the  sea,  and  continued  to  hold  it, 
as  these  lines  appeared  in  all  the  editions  of  the  drama  until 
the  Folio  was  published  in  1623,  when  they  were  canceled. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  Bacon's  works  disclose  the  same 
change  of  opinion  respecting  this  theory.  That  he  held  the  pop- 
ular theory  to  be  true  for  many  years,  we  know,  for  in  a  masque 
written  in  1594,  after  referring  to  the  pole  star,  he  wrote:  — 

Yet  even  that  star  gives  place  to  Cynthia's  rays 
Whose  drawing  virtues  govern  and  direct 
The  flots  and  reflots  of  the  Ocean. 

Christmas  Masque,  I594« 

Some  years  after  this,  however,  he  experienced  a  change  of 
opinion,  and  wrote :  — 

^  De  Augmentis.   (Spedding,  vol.  ix,  p.  57.) 

498 


THUMB  MARKS 

We  dare  not  proceed  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the  sun  and  moon 
have  a  dominion  or  influence  over  those  motions  of  the  sea. 

Mr.  Spedding,  in  his  Preface  to  Bacon's  treatise  on  the 
"Ebb  and  Flow  of  the  Sea,"  remarks:  — 

With  respect  to  theories  of  the  cause  of  the  tides,  it  may  be 
observed  that  a  connexion  of  some  kind  or  other  between  the 
tides  and  the  moon  has  at  all  times  been  popularly  recognized. 
But  the  conception  which  was  formed  as  to  the  nature  of  this  con- 
nexion long  continued  vague  and  indefinite,  and  in  Bacon's  time 
those  who  speculated  on  the  subject  were  disposed  to  reject  it 
altogether.^ 

When  twenty  years  later  Bacon  wrote  at  Gray's  Inn  his 
work  on  the  tides,  he  changed  his  opinion,  and  so  we  note  the 
remarkable  fact  that  the  popular  theory  holds  its  place  in  all 
the  editions  of  "Hamlet"  up  to  this  time,  but  thereafter  is 
omitted.  Who  canceled,  seven  years  after  the  actor's  death, 
the  lines  embodying  this  theory,  if  not  Bacon,  who  at  that 
time  had  adopted  another  theory.? 

In  "Hamlet"  we  find  another  case  of  the  reversal  of  a 
theory.  We  have  already  given  two  such  reversals  which  con- 
form to  changes  of  opinions  by  Bacon.  Is  it  possible  to  attrib- 
ute these  to  coincidence,  or  to  admit  for  a  moment  that  the 
actor  was  so  solicitous  of  his  scientific  fame  as  to  make  them  ? 
This  great  tragedy  was  written,  as  already  stated,  about  the 
time  that  the  actor  left  Stratford,  but  was  not  printed  until 
1603.   In  this  edition  are  these  lines:  — 

Doubt  that  in  Earth  is  Fire 

Doubt  that  the  Starres  do  move.    (See  Quarto  1603.) 

In  1604,  another  edition  much  enlarged  was  printed  and 
these  lines  were  changed  to 

Doubt  that  the  starres  are  fire 
Doubt  that  the  Sunne  doth  move. 

*  The  Works,  etc.,  vol.  v,  p.  238. 

499 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  theory  that  the  earth's  core  was  a  mass  of  fire  was  then 
and  has  ever  since  been  held,  but  in  1604  Bacon  wrote  his 
"Cogitations  de  Natura  Rerum/'^  and  in  this  book  advocated 
the  theory  that  the  earth  was  dead  and  cold  throughout  its 
entire  mass,  while  all  the  other  heavenly  bodies  were  fire. 
Says  Mr.  Reed,  commenting  upon  this  remarkable  incident: — 

Bacon  adopted  this  new  view  of  the  earth's  interior  at  pre- 
cisely the  same  time  that  the  author  of  "Hamlet"  did;  that  is  to 
say,  according  to  the  record,  in  the  brief  interval  between  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  first  and  that  of  the  second  edition  of  the  drama. ^ 

The  change  in  the  second  line  of  "Doubt  that  the  stars  do 
move"  to  "Doubt  that  the  sun  doth  move,"  is  equally  im- 
pressive, as  it  shows  beyond  doubt  that  the  author  of  "  Hamlet" 
always  adhered  to  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  the  Universe,  an 
erroneous  dogma  which  Bacon  also  cherished  through  life,  and 
which  has  caused  him  to  be  harshly  criticized. 

Many  other  interesting  examples  similar  to  the  foregoing 
and  equally  significant  could  be  adduced  adverse  to  the  Strat- 
fordian  delusion,  but  it  may  be  as  well  to  call  attention  to 
others  of  a  somewhat  different  nature. 

It  is  a  most  important  fact  that  in  the  "Sylva  Sylvarum/' 
published  in  1627,  a  year  after  Bacon's  death,  by  Rawley, 
which  he  says  in  the  dedication  to  Charles  I,  "The  late  Lord 
Viscount  St.  Albans  dedicated  to  Your  Majesty  about  four 
years  past,  when  Your  Majesty  was  Prince,"  appears  a  chap- 
ter entitled  "Experiments  in  Consort  touching  Music,"  ^  in 
which  Bacon  treats  of  the  subject  of  Concord  and  Discord, 
showing  that  not  long  before  the  publishing  of  the  Folio 
of  1623,  he  had  been  devoting  himself  to  the  study  of  the 
subject. 

That  he  was  familiar  with  the  technique  of  music,  and  espe- 

^  Spedding,  vol.  v,  p.  199. 

*  Edwin  Reed,  A.M.,  Francis  Bacon  Our  Shakspeu,  p.  16.  Boston,  1902. 

'  Spedding,  vol.  iv,  p.  228  et  seq. 

500 


THUMB  MARKS 

cially  with  the  tritone  some  time  before  1623,  when  he  dedi- 
cated the  "  Sylvarum"  to  the  King,  is  not  to  be  questioned.  It 
is  therefore  to  note  that  in  the  play  of  "King  Lear"  appears 
the  following:  — 

Pat:  he  comes  like  the  Catastrophe  of  the  old  Comedle;  my  Cue  is 
villanous  MelanchoUy,  with  a  sighe  like  Tom  o'  Bedlam,  —  O  these 
Eclipses  do  portend  these  divisions.   Fa,  Sol,  La,  Me.  ^ 

These  four  notes  of  the  musical  scale,  doubtless  seem  to  most 
readers  a  meaningless  addition  to  the  text.  They  form,  how- 
ever, the  tritone,  which  the  Century  Dictionary  thus  defines : — 

In  music  an  interval  composed  of  three  whole  steps  or  "tones." 
The  older  harmonists  regarded  this  intervale,  even  when  only 
suggested,  as  peculiarly  objectionable,  whence  the  proverb,  mi 
contra  fa  diaholus  est. 

It  was  therefore  called  *'The  devil  in  Music."  ^ 

The  humming  of  these  notes  was  intended,  therefore,  by 

Edmund  as  a  subtle  illustration  of  the  discordant  condition 

of  the  realm,  which  Gloucester  had  just  characterized  in  these 

words :  — 

Love  cooles,  friendship  falls  off,  Brothers  divide;  in  Cities,  mutinies; 
in  Countries,  discord;  in  Pallaces,  Treason;  and  the  Bond  crack'd  'twixt 
Sonne  and  Father.^ 

The  introduction  of  the  tritone  in  "Lear"  is  rendered 
doubly  significant  by  the  fact  that  in  the  two  editions  of  the 
play  published  in  quarto  in  1608,  it  does  not  appear.  At  this 
time  the  actor  was  living  at  Stratford,  engaged  in  those  sordid 
pursuits  which  his  biographers  so  frankly  describe.  It  seems 
hardly  reasonable  to  suppose  that  at  any  time  he  would  have 
troubled  himself  with  such  an  unprofitable  study  as  that  of  the 
tritone.  He  did  not  own,  when  he  made  his  will,  a  single  mu- 
sical instrument,  nor  any  book  on  music;  nor  is  there  a  con- 
temporary hint  that  he  had  the  least  knowledge  of  the  art ;  but 
had  he  possessed  such  knowledge,  how  can  we  account  for  the 

1  Act  I,  So.  2.  2  Cent.  Diet.,  under  "Tritone"  and  "mi." 

3  Act  I,  Sc.  2. 

SOI 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

introduction  of  this  technical  musical  interval  in  the  Folio  so 
long  after  his  death,  and  at  the  exact  time  when  Bacon  dedi- 
cated the  "Sylva  Sylvarum"  to  the  King?  We  submitted 
these  remarks  to  Professor  Latham  True,  and  take  the  liberty 
to  quote  from  his  reply:  — 

I  think  you  have  defined  the  tritone  quite  correctly,  and  have 
made  the  proper  application  to  the  passage  you  quote.  The 
tritone  is  the  interval  of  the  augmented  fourth,  or  three  whole 
tones,  as  the  name  suggests.  In  the  old  system  of  solemnization 
invented  (or  rather  probably  adopted  or  adapted  by  Guido  d' 
Arezzo)  the  letter  B,  which  was  the  third  sound  of  the  "  hexachor- 
don  durum"  was  called  mi :  and  F^  the  fourth  sound  of  the  "na- 
turale,"  was  called,  as  now,  fa.  The  interval  between  the  two  is 
the  fatal  augmented  fourth,  or  tritone.  That  probably  gave  rise 
to  the  famous  old  saying,  "Mi  contra  fa  diabolus  est  in  musica." 
In  our  present  system  of  solemnization  F  remained /<2,  but  5  was 
given  a  new  name,  si ;  and  the  old  quotation  became,  "  Si  contra 
fa  diabolus  in  musica."  In  all  strict  counterpoint  the  use  of  the 
tritone  is  strictly  forbidden.  Many  writers  on  harmony  condemn 
it  just  as  utterly;  but  there  is  a  tendency  at  the  present  time  to 
use  it. 

It  has  been  often  observed  that  a  youthful  author  can  hardly 
avoid  revealing  to  his  reader  the  scenes  and  occupations  which 
hitherto  have  influenced  his  life.  The  drama  of  "Henry  VI" 
is  acknowledged  by  all  to  be  a  youthful  work  of  its  author, 
and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  thirty  of  its  scenes  are  laid  in 
London,  Bacon's  birthplace;  three  in  St.  Albans,  where  he  was 
reared ;  twenty  in  the  French  provinces,  where  he  resided  for 
several  years  after  leaving  the  University ;  one  in  the  Temple, 
and  one  in  the  House  of  Parliament,  which  were  so  familiar  to 
him.  How  could  the  actor  have  laid  the  scenes  of  this  play, 
not  long  after  coming  to  London,  amid  scenes  so  familiar  to 
Bacon's  youth,  and  wholly  foreign  to  himself.? 

Bacon  was  familiar  with  the  heraldic  devices  of  the  noble 
families  of  his  time  at  home  and  abroad,  and  we  find  striking 

S02 


THUMB  MARKS 

instances  of  this  in  the  dramas.  Green  in  his  elaborate  work 
on  emblems  ^  gives  many  examples  to  show  the  curious  erudi- 
tion of  their  author  in  this  ancient  and  recondite  lore.  We 
will  select  from  "Pericles"  the  scene  in  which  the  six  Knights 
come  to  honor  the  daughter  of  the  King. 
Tht  first  is  the  Knight  of  Sparta:  — 

And  the  device  he  bears  upon  his  shield 
Is  a  black  Ethiope  reaching  at  the  sun; 
The  word,  Lux  tua  vita  mihi.    (Thy  light  my  life.) 

—  a  motto  borne  by  the  family  of  Blount,  the  name  of  which, 
says  Green :  — 

Being  familiar  to  Shakespeare,  the  motto  also  might  be;  and  by 
a  very  slight  alteration  he  has  ascribed  it  to  the  Knight  of  Sparta. 

He  also  calls  attention  to  Reusner's  "Emblems"  (Francfort, 
1 581),  which  shows  the  device. 

Of  the  second  Knight,  whose  motto  is,  "  Piu  por  dulzura 
que  por  fuerza"  (More  by  gentleness  than  by  force),  he  re- 
marks :  — 

Had  Shakespeare  confined  himself  to  Latin,  it  might  remain 
doubtful  whether  he  knew  anything  of  Emblem  works  beyond 
those  of  our  countrymen  —  Barclay  and  Whitney  —  and  of  the 
two  or  three  translations  into  English  from  Latin,  French,  and 
Italian.  But  the  quotation  of  a  purely  Spanish  motto  —  that 
on  the  second  Knight's  device — shows  that  his  reading  and  ob- 
servation extended  beyond  mere  English  sources,  and  that  with 
other  literary  men  of  his  day  he  had  looked  into,  if  he  had  not 
studied,  the  widely  known  and  very  popular  writings  of  Alcia- 
tus  and  Sambucus  among  Latinists,  of  Francisco  Guzman  and 
Hernando  Soto  among  Spaniards,  of  Gabriel  Faerni  and  Paolo 
Giovio  among  Italians,  and  of  Bartholomew  Aneau  and  Claude 
Paradin  among  the  French.^ 

This  is  hardly  agreeable  reading  to  Green's  fellow  Stratford- 
ians,  who  are  striving  so  hard  to  prove  that  the  author  of  the 

1  Henry  Green,  M.A.,  Shakespeare  and  the  Emblem  Writers,  p.  156.  London, 
1870. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  162  et  seq. 

.  503 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

"Shakespeare"  Works  possessed  little  learning.  We  show 
in  the  article  on  "Symbolism"  that  Bacon  was  instrumental 
in  publishing  several  works  on  Emblemata. 

The  third  Knight  is  of  Antioch. 

The  motto  is  "Me  pompoe  provexit  apex"  (The  crown  of 
fame  has  exalted  me),  and  the  device,  "A  wreath  of  chivalry." 
This  is  found  in  Paradin's  work  of  1560. 

The  fourth  Knight  bears  on  his  shield 

A  burning  torch  that's  turned  upside  down; 

The  word,  Quod  me  alit,  me  extinguit.    (What  feeds  me  extinguishes 
me.) 

Symeoni,  1 561. 

The  fifth  Knight  shows  — 

An  hand  environed  with  clouds 

Holding  out  gold  that 's  by  the  touchstone  tried; 

The  motto  thus,  Sic  spectanda  fides.  (So  should  faith  be  shown.) 

The  sixth  Knight  bears  — 

A  withered  branch,  that 's  only  green  at  top, 
The  motto,  In  hac  spe  vivo.    (In  this  hope  I  live.) 

These  two  last  devices  and  mottoes  are  found  in  Paradin. 

One  of  Bacon's  peculiar  literary  fads  was  the  threefold  ex- 
pression which  he  used  through  life.  In  this  wise  he  expressed 
his  gratitude  to  Prince  Charles :  — 

That  stretched  forth  your  arm  to  save  me  from  a  sentence; 

That  took  hold  of  me  to  keep  me  from  being  plunged  in  a  sentence; 

That  hath  kept  me  alive  in  your  gracious  memory,  since  the  sentence. 

The  same  fad  often  appears  in  the  plays :  — 

If  you  did  know  to  whom  I  gave  the  ring, 
And  would  conceive  for  what  I  gave  the  ring; 
And  how  unwittingly  I  left  the  ring. 

Merchant  of  Venice ,  v,  I . 

This  mode  of  expression  is  not  alone  found  in  the  works 
above  quoted,  but  no  Stratfordian  would  admit  that  the  oft- 
repeated  use  of  this  unusual  mode  of  expression  by  contem- 

504 


THUMB  MARKS 

poraries,  one  a  great  philosopher  and  the  other  an  humble 
actor,  is  a  whit  more  significant  than  its  occasional  use  by 
writers  of  popular  literature.  We  believe  that  unprejudiced 
readers  will  think  otherwise. 

Browne,  the  author  of  "Shakespeare's  Biographical  Plays," 
remarks  that  "His  description  of  Italian  scenes  and  manners 
are  more  minute  and  accurate  than  if  he  had  derived  his  infor- 
mation wholly  from  books";  and  his  biographer.  Knight,  re- 
ferring to  the  "Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  "  It  is  difficult  for  those 
who  have  explored  the  City  of  Padua  to  resist  the  persuasion 
that  the  poet  himself  had  been  one  of  the  travellers  who  had 
come  from  afar  to  look  upon  its  seats  of  learning,  if  not  to  par- 
take of  its  'ingenius  studies.'  There  is  a  pure  Paduan  atmos- 
phere hanging  about  this  play."  We  quite  agree  with  Browne 
and  Knight  that  the  cities  of  Italy  were  familiar  to  "the  poet" 
who  wrote  the  Italian  plays,  for  he  describes  them  as  one  who 
knew  them  intimately.  Lady  Morgan  says  that  so  correct  is 
the  description  of  the  furniture  in  old  Grumio's  house,  that 
every  article  mentioned  in  the  play  has  been  seen  by  her  in  the 
palaces  of  Florence,  Venice,  and  Genoa.  Bacon  was  familiar 
with  such  interiors,  and  could  have  described  them  accurately. 
Is  it  supposable  that  the  supposed  author  of  the  "  Biograph- 
ical" plays  could  have  done  so  "by  pure  and  unaided  genius "  ? 

The  most  insignificant  points  are  made  by  Stratfordians 
against  those  who  differ  with  them.  In  a  recent  publication 
the  ground  was  taken  that  Baconians  did  not  seem  to  be  aware 
that  in  claiming  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  so  full  of  anach- 
ronisms, geographical  and  other  errors,  they  were  detracting 
from  the  fame  of  Bacon  for  erudition;  indeed,  giving  their 
case  away.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  well  aware  that  such  in- 
accuracies as  they  refer  to  were  common  among  writers  of  his 
time,  and  that  Bacon  was  not  exempt  from  them.  Says  Rey- 
nolds, the  editor  of  the  Clarendon  Press  edition  of  Bacon's 
Essays,  "For  accuracy  of  detail  he  had  no  care  whatever. 

SOS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

That  he  frequently  quoted  from  memory  seems  certain.  We 
find  accordingly  that  the  Essays  abound  in  misquotations  of  a 
more  or  less  important  kind."  Knowing  his  habit  of  dictating 
to  amanuenses  on  all  occasions,  we  can  well  understand  the 
reason  for  such  inaccuracies.  Again  it  is  objected  that  he 
could  not  have  been  the  author  of  the  dramas,  because  he  him- 
self expressly  disclaims  being  a  poet.  Does  he  ?  In  the  passage 
alluded  to  he  was  explaining  his  relations  with  Essex.  It  is  as 
follows:  "Though  I  profess  not  to  be  a  poet,  I  writ  a  sonnet 
directly  tending  and  alluding  to  draw  on  Her  Majesty's  recon- 
cilement to  my  Lord.''  He  did  not  say  that  he  was  not  a  poet, 
but  did  not  "profess"  to  be  one.  This  is  in  exact  accord  with 
what  he  shortly  after  wrote  to  Sir  John  Davis,  that  he  was  "a 
concealed  poet."  Such  arguments  are  hardly  worthy  of  at- 
tention, but  it  is  noticeable  that  permitting  them  to  pass  un- 
noticed has  been  taken  for  proof  that  they  were  unanswerable. 

Perhaps,  however,  before  dismissing  the  subject,  we  should 
mention  the  fact  that  the  Society  for  the  Study  of  Modern 
Languages  recently  decided  that  anachronisms  do  not  neces- 
sarily indicate  ignorance  in  an  author,  and  in  support  of  this 
thesis,  attention  was  called  to  a  recent  play  by  members  of  the 
French  Academy,  in  which  Spain  and  Italy  were  made  ad- 
joining countries.  We  are  reminded  in  this  connection  of  the 
prolepsis  made  by  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  in 
representing  Hector  as  quoting  Aristotle  long  before  his  birth. 
This,  however,  is  no  greater  than  that  made  by  Virgil  in  repre- 
senting iEneas  as  a  contemporary  of  Dido,  and  becomes  in- 
significant when  compared  with  the  "  Byron"  of  Moore,  which 
Macaulay  remarks  is  throughout  anachronistic,  since  even  the 
sentiments  and  phrases  of  Versailles  appear  in  the  Camp  of 
AuHs. 

We  claim,  however,  no  immunity  for  Bacon.  While  we 
think  that  his  anachronisms  were  not  the  result  of  ignorance, 
we  must  admit  that  he  was  inexcusably  careless,  a  fault  no 
doubt  arising  from  his  habit  of  dictating  to  amanuenses,  in 

506 


THUMB  MARKS 

some  cases  without  subsequent  examination.  It  is  curious  that 
at  the  same  period,  1594,  in  several  anonymous  works  since 
ascribed  to  Marlowe,  Peele,  Kyd,  and  Greene,  appear  certain 
coincidences  of  expression  found  in  "Henry  VI"  and  "Lu- 
crece."  These  are  typical  examples:  — 

Yor.  I  am  farre  better  borne  then  is  the  King: 

More  like  a  King,  more  Kingly  in  my  thoughts. 

K.  Henry  VI,  v,  i. 

Peele:  This  princely  mind  in  thee 

Argues  the  height  and  honor  of  thy  birth. 
Greene:  Selim,  thy  mind  in  kingly  thoughts  attire. 
Marlowe:  This  kindness  to  thy  King,  argues  thy  noble  mind  and  dis- 
position. 
O  comfort-killing  Night,  image  of  Hell, 
Dim  register,  and  notarie  of  shame, 
Blacke  stage  for  tragedies,  and  murthers  fell, 
Vast  sin-concealing  Chaos,  nourse  of  blame. 

Lucrece,  Quarto,  764-67. 

Darke  Night,  dread  Night,  the  silence  of  the  Night, 
Wherein  the  Faries  maske  in  hellish  troupes. 

The  Contention,  K.  Henry  VI,  i,  4. 

The  silence  of  the  Speechless  Night, 
Dire  architect  of  murders  and  misdeeds. 
Kyd:  Night,  the  coverer  of  accursed  crimes. 

The  silent  deeps  of  dead-sad  Night,  where  sins   do  mask 
unseen. 

Stratfordians  now  deride  coincidences  of  expression,  de- 
claring that  they  were  common  to  the  time;  yet  owing  to  such 
coincidences  they  have  assigned  anonymous  works  to  Kyd, 
Peele,  and  others.  Consistency  with  them  is  no  longer  a  jewel. 

Macaulay  relates  the  episode  relative  to  Bacon's  treatment 
by  the  powerful  favorite  of  James :  — 

Having  given  these  proofs  of  contrition  he  ventured  to  present 
himself  before  Buckingham.  But  the  young  upstart  did  not  think 
that  he  had  yet  sufficiently  humbled  an  old  man  who  had  been 
his  friend  and  his  benefactor,  who  was  the  highest  civil  function- 
ary in  the  realm,  and  the  most  eminent  man  of  letters  in  the 
world.   It  is  said  that  on  two  successive  days  Bacon  repaired  to 

S07 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Buckingham's  house,  that  on  two  successive  days  he  was  suffered 
to  remain  in  an  antechamber  among  foot-boys,  seated  on  an  old 
wooden  box,  with  the  Great  Seal  of  England  at  his  side.^ 

In  the  drama  of  "Henry  VIII,"  published  in  1623,  occurs 
this  counterpart  of  Bacon's  experience.  The  reader  will  de- 
cide whether  this  was  the  result  of  design  or  coincidence :  — 

Cran,  .  .  .  for  certaine 

This  is  of  purpose  laid  by  some  that  hate  me, 
(God  turne  their  hearts,  I  never  sought  their  malice) 
To  quench  mine  Honor;  they  would  shame  to  make  me 
Wait  else  at  doore;  a  fellow  Councellor 
'Mong  Boyes,  Groomes  and  Lackeyes, 
But  their  pleasures 
Must  be  fulfill'd,  and  I  attend  with  patience. 

Enter  the  King  and  Buts,  at  a  Windowe  above. 

Buts.  He  shew  your  Grace  the  strangest  sight, 

King,  What 's  that  Buts  t 

Buts.  I  thinke  your  Highnesse  saw  this  many  a  day. 

King.  Body  a  me;  where  is  it.^^ 

Buts.  There  my  Lord: 

The  high  promotion  of  his  Grace  of  Canterbury, 
Who  holds  his  State  at  dore  'mongst  Pursevants, 
Pages,  and  Foot-boyes. 

V,  2, 

This  scene  correctly  embodies  the  incident  related  by  Macau- 
lay  which  occurred  in  162 1,  five  years  after  the  actor's  death. 

The  editor  of  the  "Cambridge  Spenser,"  in  interesting  re- 
flections upon  the  Puritanism  of  Spenser,  which  space  will  not 
permit  us  to  quote  in  full,  remarks :  — 

To  what  extent  Spenser  may  have  held  with  the  Puritans  is 
nevertheless  a  somewhat  perplexed  question.  One  could  wish 
that  the  allegory  of  the  three  eclogues  were  clearer  —  except  for  a 
brief  passage  upon  the  intercession  of  saints,  the  thought  of  which 
is  broadly  Protestant,  there  is  hardly  a  glance  at  dogma. ^ 

^  For  original  see  Sir  Anthony  Weldon's  Court  and  Character  of  King  James. 
London,  1651;  or  Secret  History  of  Reign  of,  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  440.  Ibid.,  181 1. 
2  One  of  King  James's  favorite  expressions. 
2  The  Complete  Works,  etc.,  p.  2  et  seq. 

508 


THUMB  MARKS 

Bacon,  who  was  unmistakably  a  religious  man,  was  tolerant 
in  an  intolerant  age  of  all  faiths,  and  it  seems  somewhat  re- 
markable that  writers  have  been  puzzled  in  precisely  the  same 
manner  with  regard  to  his  dogmatic  beliefs,  and  those  of  the 
author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  as  the  Cambridge  editor 
has  been  with  respect  to  those  of  Spenser. 

Words  employed  by  W.  S.  in  "Locrine,"  and  by  Spenser  in 
the  "Calendar"  and  "Faerie  Queene,"  were  obsolete  at  the 
time  their  authors  used  them,  and  it  is  suggestive  that  Bacon 
in  the  same  manner  effectively  made  use  of  obsolete  words  to 
garnish  his  discourses  after  the  manner  of  Livy  and  Sallust, 
with  whose  works  he  was  familiar. 

Stratford  is  never  mentioned  in  the  plays  and  poems  attrib- 
uted to  the  actor.  Were  he  their  author  this  would  seem  strange, 
for  here  he  lived  from  infancy  to  manhood.  Warwickshire  is 
almost  ignored,  though  special  pride  was  taken  by  the  towns- 
man in  his  county.  St.  Albans,  the  favorite  residence  of  Bacon, 
is  often  brought  into  the  plays,  and  Kent,  the  county  of  the 
Bacons,  still  oftener.  If  Bacon  were  their  author  he  might 
well  have  made  the  allusions  to  Warwickshire,  for  he  had  rela- 
tives there  whom  he  visited.  Stony  Stratford  is  once  named, 
but  it  is  in  the  county  of  Bucks. 

In  Bacon's  "Advancement  of  Learning"  he  translates  an 

opinion  of  Aristotle  to  the  effect  that  "young  men  are  no  fit 

auditors  of  moral  philosophy."  The  same  sentiment  appears 

in  "Troilus  and  Cressida":  — 

Young  men  whom  Aristotle  thought 
Unfit  to  hear  moral  philosophy. 

11,2. 

The  word  "moral"  has  been  called  a  mistranslation  of  the 
Greek  word,  polttikes.  But  the  actor  was  said  to  know  "  little 
Latin  and  less  Greek,"  and  this  ''only  strengthened  his  claim 

S09 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

for  the  authorship  of  the  play''  How  strange,  though,  that 
Bacon,  whose  recently  discovered  library,  we  are  told,  shows 
him  to  have  been  an  accomplished  Greek  scholar  at  fourteen, 
should  also  mistranslate  this  word. 

An  examination  of  Bacon's  work,  however,  shows  that  he 
made  an  unusual  but,  in  this  case,  apt  translation  of  the  word, 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  his  thesis.  But  where  did  the 
actor  get  this  "mistranslation,"  and  how  should  he  be  so 
familiar  with  this  unusual  use  of  politikes  as  to  use  it  in  a 
play?  This  can  be  explained  only  by  one  of  the  pernicious 
theorists  who  are  claiming  that  Bacon  and  the  actor  collabo- 
rated. 

The  affection  existing  through  life  between  Anthony  and 
Francis  Bacon  was  flawless.  They  were  educated  together, 
possessed  similar  literary  tastes,  and  the  elder  was  ever  ready 
to  sacrifice  his  wealth  to  forward  the  interests  of  the  younger 
man.  That  Anthony  was  highly  esteemed  for  his  ability  is 
shown  by  his  correspondence,  upon  which  Birch  founded 
much  of  his  historical  work.  It  is  said  that  he  contributed  to 
some  of  the  literary  productions  of  Francis,  and  was  passion- 
ately fond  of  the  drama,  so  much  so  that  he  went  to  reside  at 
Bishopsgate  to  be  near  the  theater  where  the  "Shakespeare" 
plays  were  enacted.  It  is  a  most  suggestive  fact  that  An- 
thony's name  so  repeatedly  appears  in  these  plays :  — 

/.  CcBsar,  I,  2.  He  loves  no  plays  as  thou  dost  Antony. 

Tempest,  i,  2.  Did  Antonio  open  the  gates? 

Two  Gent.  Verona,  11,  4.        Know  you  Don  Antonio? 

Much  Ado,  II,  I.  You  are  signior  Antonio? 

Mer.  Venice,  1,1.  To  you,  Antonio,  I  owe  the  most. 

Ant.  Cleo.,  11,  7.  Good  Antony,  your  hand. 

AWs  Well,  III,  5.  That  is  Antonio  the  Duke's  eldest. 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  i,  2.     Antonio,  my  father  is  deceased. 

Love's  Labours  Lost,  1,1.       I  am  Antony  Dull. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  v.  Antony  and  Potpan. 

Henry  V,  iv,  8.  Antony,  Duke  of  Brabant,  the  brother. 

Richard  III,  i,  i.  Man  of  Worship,  Antony  Woodville. 

Mer.  Venice,  v,  i.  Brother  Antony. 


THUMB  MARKS 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  in  twelve  plays  there  is  an  Antony, 
or  Antonio,  the  equivalent  of  Anthony.  We  select  these  from 
the  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  allusions  to  the  name  in  the 
** Shakespeare"  plays,  which  we  find  in  Mrs.  Cowden  Clark's 
Concordance.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  fact,  that 
shortly  before  the  appearance  of  the  "Merchant  of  Venice," 
when  Francis  Bacon  was  arrested  for  debt  by  Sympson,  a  Jew 
of  Lombard  Street,  Anthony  came  to  his  relief,  as  Antonio  did 
to  Bassanio's  when  persecuted  for  debt  by  Shylock.  There  is 
good  reason  why  Francis  Bacon  should  introduce  in  plays 
which  he  was  writing  the  name  ''Anthony"  his  "comfort  and 
consorte,"  but  none  why  it  should  be  of  such  absorbing  inter- 
est to  the  actor  that  he  should  iterate,  and  reiterate  it  almost 
tediously.  We  should  call  especial  attention  to  this  in  the 
author's  greatest  drama  which  affords  us  several  clues  to  his 
identity. 

Lady  Bacon  was  the  governess  to  Prince  Edward,  the 
brother  of  Mary  and  Elizabeth,  and  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  her 
father  was  his  tutor ;  so  that  during  her  life  she  was  associated 
intimately  with  the  family  of  Henry  VHL  Francis,  we  are  in- 
formed, was  endowed  with  a  remarkable  wit,  which  was  recog- 
nized in  an  age  when  wit  was  practiced  as  a  fine  art.  In  him  it 
was  spontaneous,  and,  from  the  evidence  of  contemporaries, 
must  have  been  phenomenal.  In  early  youth  he  was  under 
influences  which  fostered  the  development  of  this  inherent 
talent.  It  was  in  the  family  of  the  King  that  John  Heywood 
occupied  an  exceptional  position  as  Court  Jester.  Of  his  re- 
lations with  Queen  Mary,  his  rare  humor  so  lightened  the 
sadness  which  frequently  oppressed  her,  that  it  is  said,  "His 
pleasantries  often  acceptable  in  her  privy  chamber,  helped  to 
amuse  her  even  on  her  death  bed."  ^ 

This  man  "of  most  excellent  fancy"  was  of  good  birth,  and 
made  himself  useful  in  arranging  Court  entertainments,  con- 

^  Doran,  History  of  Court  Fools,  p.  132.  London,  1856.  Cf.  Diet.  National 
Biography,  in  loco. 

5" 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

tributing  to  the  wit  of  the  table,  and  singing  a  humorous  song 
when  called  upon;  in  fact,  he  occupied  a  position  much  like 
that  of  the  modern  social  secretary.  That  he  was  musical  we 
know,  for  he  says  of  himself,  — 

Long  have  I  bene  a  singinge  man, 
And  sondrie  partes  ofte  have  I  songe. 

Being  a  stanch  Catholic,  some  time  after  the  accession  of 
Elizabeth  he  left  England  and  ended  his  days  in  Malines,  "the 
yeare  that  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon  dyed."  This  particular  associa- 
tion of  his  death  with  that  of  Sir  Nicholas  indicates  their  rela- 
tion in  life.  It  was  in  the  family  of  Sir  Nicholas  that  this  man 
"of  infinite  wit"  was  certain  to  find  welcome,  and  the  two 
boys  of  the  household  would  not  be  the  last  to  hail  his  coming 
or  to  appreciate  his  witty  sayings. 

The  first  Quarto  of  "Hamlet"  entered  on  the  Stationers' 
Register,  July  26,  1602,  under  the  title  of  "The  Revenge  of 
Hamlet,"  was  published  in  1603,  and  as  all  authorities  agree, 
and  internal  evidence  reveals,  was  printed  surreptitiously 
from  an  early  and  incomplete  manuscript  of  the  play,  as  it  had 
been  exhibited  as  far  back  as  1590  or  earlier.  Evidently  to  set 
the  matter  right,  this  unsatisfactory  publication  was  super- 
seded by  another  quarto,  printed  for  the  same  publisher,  "Ac- 
cording to  the  true  and  perfect  Coppie."  This  complete  and 
corrected  work,  the  preparation  of  which  for  the  press  had 
probably  been  begun  not  long  after  the  announcement  of  the 
former  work  in  1602,  appeared  early  in  1604.  It  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  among  the  corrections  of  the  text  is  that  of  the 
length  of  time  that  Yorick  is  said  to  have  "lain  in  the  earth," 
and  that  this  change  of  dates  clearly  identifies  Heywood  with 
the  "  Yoricke"  of  the  grave-digger. 

It  was  quite  correct  to  say  in  the  play,  written  in  1590  or 
even  somewhat  earlier,  "a  dozen  years";  but  when  the  play 
was  revised  in  1602-03  it  was  more  correct  to  say  "23  yeares." 

We  have  mentioned  Heywood  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 

512 


THUMB  MARKS 

that  Francis  Bacon  could  well  have  ridden  on  Yorick's  back, 
and  shared  the  gambols  of  this  "man  of  most  excellent  fancy," 
as  Hamlet  described  him.  We  quote  from  the  Quarto  of  1 604 : — 

Clow.  Heer  's  a  scull  now  hath  lyen  you  i'th  earth  23  yeares. 

Ham.  Whose  was  it? 

Clow.  A  whorson  mad  fellowes  it  was,  whose  do  you  think  it  was? 

Ham.  Nay  I  know  not. 

Clow.  A  pestilence  on  him  for  a  madde  rogue,  a  pourd  a  flagon  of  Renith 
on  my  head  once;  this  same  skull  sir,  was  Sir  Yo rick's  skull,  the 
King's  jester. 

Ham.  This? 

Clow.  Een  that. 

Ham.  Alas  poore  Yoricke,  I  knew  him  Horatio,  a  fellow  of  Infinite  jest, 
of  most  excellent  fancie,  hee  hath  bore  me  on  his  backe  a  thou- 
sand times,  and  now  how  abhorred  in  my  imagination  it  is;  my 
gorge  rises  at  it.  Heere  hung  those  lippes  that  I  have  kist  I 
know  not  howe  oft,  where  be  your  gibes  now?  your  gamboles, 
your  songs,  your  flashes  of  merriment,  that  were  wont  to  set 
the  table  on  a  roare,  not  one  now  to  mocke  your  owne  grinning, 
quite  chopfalne.  Now  get  you  to  my  Ladies  table,  &  tell  her, 
let  her  paint  an  inch  thicke,  to  this  favour  she  must  come,  make 
her  laugh  at  that. 

The  Stratford  actor  had  gone  to  London  years  after  Yorick 
had  died  in  a  foreign  land  and  passed  from  memory.  How  un- 
reasonable to  think  that  he  wrote  this  scene,  and  cared  enough, 
even  if  he  remembered,  to  change  in  a  later  edition  of  a  play 
the  number  of  years  that  Yorick  had  been  buried,  in  order  to 
fix  more  accurately  the  date  of  his  death.  It  is  unthinkable ! 
The  boy,  however,  who  had  shared  in  the  gambols  and  songs 
of  this  merry  friend  of  his  childhood,  had  **kist''  him,  "I 
know  not  how  oft,"  and  been  borne  on  his  "back  a  thousand 
times,"  would  be  sure  to  remember  that  the  date  of  his  death 
was  the  same  as  that  of  his  beloved  father  —  for  so  he  always 
called  him  —  and  do  so  spontaneously.  We  must  distinguish 
Heywood,  the  Court  Jester  of  Henry  VHI,  from  Will  Somers, 
his  Court  Fool.  One  was  a  witty  gentleman  whom  it  would  be 
proper  for  an  inferior  to  address  as  "Sir";  the  other  a  profes- 
sional clown. 

S13 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

We  have  mentioned  Bacon's  library,  containing,  we  are  told, 
many  of  the  works  upon  which  the  plays  were  founded,  with 
his  notes,  "Writ  in  the  glassie  margents  of  such  bookes."  One 
of  these  is  Buchanan's  "Historia  Scotica"  (1588),  which  con- 
tains the  story  of  Macbeth.  On  one  of  the  pages  he  has  written 
"Macbethi,  Macbetho,"  and  "Macbethus  Tyrannus,"  and 
"Bancho  rigiae  caedis."  Many  of  the  words,  which  one  en- 
gaged in  writing  upon  the  subject  would  have  been  likely  to 
use,  suggestively  or  otherwise,  are  carefully  underlined,  show- 
ing that  he  was  especially  interested  in  the  subject.  Writers 
have  supposed  that  the  author  of  "Macbeth"  was  confined  to 
Holinshed's  "Chronicle,"  but  in  Bacon's  library,  Mr.  Smedley 
informs  us,  is  a  copy  of  "Baethius"  (1575),  also  annotated  by 
him,  showing  that  he  also  was  familiar  with  the  original  story 
of  Macbeth.  In  this  book  Bacon  has  written  the  genealogy  of 
the  Scottish  Kings  descended  from  Banquo  to,  and  including 
James  V,  comprising  seven  kings;  but  turning  to  the  play, 
which  appeared  first  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  Macbeth  is  shown 
these  descendants  of  Banquo  by  the  weird  sisters.  Each  ap- 
pears until  the  last  in  Bacon's  genealogy  is  exhausted :  — 

A  seventh?   I  '11  see  no  more;  — 
And  yet  the  eighth  appears,  who  bears  a  glass, 
Which  shows  me  many  more;  and  some  I  see 
That  two-fold  balls  and  treble  scepters  carry. 
Horrible  sight!   Now,  I  see,  't  is  true; 
For  the  blood-bolter'd  Banquo  smiles  upon  me. 
And  points  at  them  for  his. —  What!  is  this  so? 

IV,  I. 

The  eighth  king  is  James  I,  who  wielded  "treble  scepters," 
claiming  to  be  monarch  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Ireland. 
The  author  of  "Macbeth"  was  familiar  with  Scotland,  and  in 
the  witch  scenes  shows  that  he  derived  his  local  color  from  per- 
sonal observation,  and  the  records  of  the  witch  trials  at  Aberdeen, 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  "As  You  Like  It,"  how  Jacques, 
a  courtier,  chafing  at  the  restrictions  upon  the  liberty  of  speech, 


THUMB  MARKS 

petulantly  exclaimed  that  it  were  better  to  be  a  fool,  as  he 
could  then  say  what  he  liked :  — 

Jaq.  O,  that  I  were  a  fool! 

I  am  ambitious  for  a  motley  coat. 
Duke  S.  Thou  shalt  have  one. 

Jaq.  It  is  my  only  suit; 

Provided  that  you  weed  your  better  judgments 
Of  all  opinion  that  grows  rank  in  them, 
That  I  am  wise.    I  must  have  liberty 
Withal,  as  large  a  charter  as  the  wind, 
To  blow  on  whom  I  please:  for  so  fools  have: 
And  they  that  are  most  galled  with  my  folly, 
They  most  must  laugh. 

How  suggestive  this  is  of  Bacon. 

He  had  been  forced,  in  order  to  reach  the  apprehension  of 
the  common  people,  to  assume  "the  dispised  weed"  of  an 
actor,  then  regarded  with  contempt.  The  plays  are  crowded 
with  such  suggestive  incidents  as  this.  Note  also  how  he  later 
adds :  "  I  do  now  remember  a  saying  '  the  Fool  doth  think  he  is 
wise,  but  the  wise  man  knows  himself  to  be  a  fool.' "  The  same 
year  that  "As  You  Like  It"  was  printed.  Bacon  published 
in  Latin  his  "De  Augmentis,"  in  which  appears  this  very 
sentiment,  translated  thus:  "If  you  be  wise  you  are  a  Fool,  if 
you  be  a  Fool  you  are  wise." 

"Venus  and  Adonis"  was  licensed  for  printing  by  Bacon's 
old  teacher  and  friend,  Whitgift,  then  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. Is  it  at  all  probable  that  such  a  poem,  especially  if 
known  as  the  work  of  an  actor,  would  have  secured  a  reading, 
much  less  a  sanction  to  print,  from  this  stern  censor  .f*  With 
Bacon,  his  star  pupil,  the  case  would  be  altogether  different, 
and  a  point  might  be  stretched  in  his  favor. 

In  "Love's  Labours  Lost,"  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in 
Navarre  at  the  Court  of  which  Bacon  passed  some  of  the  hap- 
piest years  of  his  life,  appear  the  characters  Biron,  Boyet,  and 
Dumayne.  These  men  were  well  known  to  him  and  Anthony 

SIS 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Bacon,  and  on  the  latter's  passports,  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum,  the  names  of  each  appear.^ 

We  have  called  attention  to  the  scene  in  the  drama  of 
"Henry  VHI,"  in  which  the  fall  of  Lord  Chancellor  Wolsey  in 
1529  is  depicted,  and  how  closely  it  parallels  that  of  Bacon  in 
1 62 1.  The  most  remarkable  fact  is,  that  contrary  to  history, 
four  persons  are  represented  as  being  sent  to  Wolsey  to  demand 
from  him  the  Great  Seal,  while  there  were  but  two.  These  four 
persons  were  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  and  Earl  of  Surrey,  the  persons  who  were  really 
sent  to  Bacon  to  demand  the  Seal  from  him.^  This  shows  that 
the  author  of  this  scene  drew  his  description  from  Bacon's  case 
and  not  from  Wolsey's.  It  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  the 
actor  was  its  author,  as  the  event  described  in  it  occurred  five 
years  after  his  death. 

Mr.  Smedley  is  our  authority  for  the  following. 

Among  the  books  in  Bacon's  library  is  a  copy  of  Alciati's 
"Emblems"  annotated  by  Bacon,  and  the  remarkable  fact 
disclosed  by  the  discovery  of  this  book  is,  that  not  only  has 
Ben  Jonson  "incorporated  in  his  Discoveries  the  translation 
of  a  portion  of  one  of  the  Emblems,"  but  he  ''has  also  incor- 
porated a  portion  of  the  annotations  from  this  very  hook  J'  ^ 

Any  one  acquainted  with  ancient  manuscripts,  especially 
government  correspondence,  is  aware  that  numbers  are  often 
used  in  them,  being  substituted  for  names.  This,  for  instance, 
is  an  example :  A  writer,  who  signs  himself  6j,  writes  this  to  82 : 
"I  am  satisfied  that  if  60  had  given  a  decisive  order  to  19  the 
result  would  have  been  different."  To  mislead  one  who  might 
possess  himself  of  correspondence,  two,  or  even  more,  numbers, 

1  Add.  MSS.  No.  4125. 

2  Lodge,  Sketch  of  Wolsey  in  Portraits  of  Illustrious  Personages,  etc.,  vol. ;,  p.  9. 
'  Smedley,  The  Mystery  of,  etc.,  p.  160. 

S16 


THUMB  MARKS 

were  used  on  different  occasions.  Bacon,  as  we  know,  had 
two  numbers,  33  and  53,  which  he  often  employed.  Both 
are  his  numerical  names,  using  the  ancient  alphabet  as  nu- 
merals, a  fov  ly  b  for  2,  and  so  on.  The  numbers  in  Bacon 
aggregate  33. 

As  33  might  by  over-frequent  use  attract  too  much  atten- 
tion, he  varied  it  by  using  53,  the  numerical  value  of  the  Latin 


^  dies  meliora. 


5J 


TH  E  greedie  Sowc  Co  longe  as  fhee  dothe  finde , 
Some  fcatteringes  lefte ,  of  hanieft  vndcc  foote 
She  fonv'ard  goes  and  neuer  loolces  behinde. 
While  anie  /weete  remayneth  for  to  roote, 

Euen  foe  wee  flionlde,  to  goodnes  euerie  dale 
Still  further  pafle ,  and  not  to  turne  nor  ftaie. 

form  " i^.  Bacono."  That  he  did  this  is  revealed  in  Whitney's 
"Emblems,"  page  53,  published  in  1586,  when  he  was  making 
emblem  literature,  one  of  "the  little  works  of  my  recreation." 
The  position  of  the  emblem  on  page  53  would  identify  it  be- 
yond question  with  Bacon  if  the  emblem  itself  did  not.  A 
glance  at  it,  however,  shows  us  the  letter  F  in  the  broken  arch 
reversed,  as  in  the  Montaigne  title-page,  and  beneath  it  the 
double  arch,  which,  turned  half  around  to  the  right,  discloses 
B,  In  the  middle  is  the  dark  and  light  J  so  often  used  in  his 

517 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

head-pieces,  and  in  the  foreground  surmounted  by  the  word 
ulterius  is  a  "Greedie  Sow"  by  which  stands  a  swineherd 
pointing  to  pillars  of  Hercules,  bearing  a  scroll  upon  which  is 
inscribed  flus  oltre,  and  over  them  the  words  In  dies  meliora ; 
in  other  words,  the  swineherd  standing  by  the  embodiment  of 
stupid  greed  points  to  the  hopeful  words,  **  In  better  days  more 
beyond. '* 

That  the  number  53  plays  an  important  role  in  the  First 
Folio  is  evident.  It  is  noticeable  that  it  is  divided  into  three 
parts,  and  each  part  separately  numbered;  making  three 
pages  numbered  53.  In  these  we  shall  find  this  curious  fact: 
in  the  first,  in  the  "Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  is  "hang,  hog," 
and  the  reply,  "hang-hog,  is  latten  for  Bacon."  In  the  second 
division,  the  page  of  which  is  falsely  numbered  53,  as  if  to  call 
especial  attention  to  it,  appears  in  "  King  Henry  IV,"  "  I  have 
a  Gammon  of  Bacon." 

Florio,  who  was  one  of  Bacon's  trusted  servants,  and  was 
pensioned  for  making  his  "works  known  abroad,"  placed  on 
page  S3  of  his  "  Second  Frutes,"  the  words, "  Set  that  gammon 
of  bakon  upon  the  board." 

In  the  1664  edition  of  the  Folio,  the  publication  of  which 
Bacon's  friend,  Rawley,  is  believed  to  have  promoted,  we  shall 
hardly  expect  to  find  this  revealing  number,  but  an  examina- 
tion shows  that  two  pages  are  numbered  53  placed  opposite 
each  other,  and  on  both  are  found  "  S  Albans,"  the  name  he 
often  employed  as  a  signature.  There  are  many  similar  in- 
stances which  clearly  show  design;  their  number  and  char- 
acter making  them  beyond  the  bounds  of  coincidence.  The 
curious  exploitation  of  the  Bacon  crest  was  no  doubt  sug- 
gested by  the  somewhat  threadbare  but  witty  anecdote  of 
Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  who,  when  a  criminal  by  the  name  of 
Hogg  appealed  to  him  for  a  light  sentence  on  the  ground 
of  relationship,  replied,  "You  and  I  cannot  be  kindred  ex- 
cept you  be  hanged;  for  Hog  is  not  Bacon  until  it  be  well 
hanged." 

S18 


THUMB  MARKS 

Says  Max  Miiller:  — 

A  well  educated  person  in  England  who  has  been  at  a  public 
school  and  at  the  university,  seldom  uses  more  than  about  3000 
or  4000  words.  Shakespeare,  who  probably  displayed  a  greater 
variety  of  expression  than  any  writer  in  any  language,  produced 
all  his  plays  with  about  15,000  words. ^ 

A  recent  writer  on  this  subject  says  that  the  number  is 
much  larger  than  this,  and  that  Murray's  Dictionary  shows 
that  seven  thousand  are  new  words  coined  by  the  author  of 
the  plays.  Between  seven  or  eight  thousand  words  only  are 
said  to  have  been  used  by  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  Is  it  sup- 
posable  that  the  actor  could  have  used  double  as  many  as 
either  of  these  authors  ? 

This  verbal  opulence  is  thus  noticed  by  Furnivall  in  his 
notes  in  the  quarto  of  "Lucrece" :  — 

In  turning  over  the  pages  of  Schmidt's  Lexicon,  I  have  been 
fairly  surprised  at  the  large  proportion  of  his  words  and  senses  of 
words  which  Shakspere  used  only  once. 

We  know  that  Bacon  wrote  a  sonnet  which  he  delivered  to 
Elizabeth  as  a  plea  for  forgiveness  of  Essex.  The  brilliant 
critic,  Begley,  has  pointed  out  in  Portia's  address  in  the 
"Merchant  of  Venice"  what  he  regards  as  this  sonnet:  — 

The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strain'd, 
It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 
Upon  the  place  beneath;  it  is  twice  bless'd; 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 
'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest,  it  becomes 
The  throned  monarch  better  than  the  crown; 
His  sceptre  shows  the  force  of  temporal  power, 
■    The  attribute  to  awe  and  majesty, 

Wherein  doth  sit  the  dread  and  power  of  kings. 
It  is  our  attribute  to  God  himself, 
And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's 
When  mercy  seasons  justice. 


IV,  I. 


*  Science  of  Language,  vol.  i,  p.  378.   1899. 

S19 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

We  have  spoken  of  the  fact  that  Bacon  was  married  habited 
in  purple.  Curiously  enough,  when  he  rode  in  procession  to  be 
inducted  into  the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor,  he  was  robed  in 
the  same  royal  color,  which  excited  criticism.  The  state  which 
he  assumed  annoyed  the  vain  monarch,  who  regarded  this 
display  of  the  purple  as  a  petty  exhibition  of  vanity,  but  it 
may  seem  to  some  —  and  this  seems  to  have  escaped  observa- 
tion —  that  he  availed  himself  of  these  opportunities  to  be- 
queath to  the  future  suggestive  evidence  of  his  right  to  wear  it. 
If  so,  could  the  irony  of  fortune  be  more  forcibly,  perhaps  we 
might  say  pathetically,  displayed  ? 

Bacon  wrote  Matthew,  in  1608,  alluding  to  the  "Fe- 
licity of  Elizabeth"  which  he  had  sent  him:  "At  that  time 
methought,  you  were  more  willing  to  hear  Julius  Ccesar  than 
Elizabeth  commended";  and  Matthew  wrote  in  a  letter  to 
Bacon  respecting  some  work  he  had  received  from  him,  "  I  will 
not  return  you  weight  for  weight  but  Measure  for  Measure/' 
This  play  was  first  produced  in  1603  at  Wilton  before  the  King 
and  Court  during  the  trial  of  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  and  the 
speech  of  Isabella  is  thought  to  have  been  introduced  in  behalf 
of  the  unfortunate  Ralegh. 

Had  these  allusions  to  "Julius  Caesar"  and  "Measure  for 
Measure"  been  found  in  correspondence  between  the  actor 
and  a  literary  friend,  would  it  not  have  been  blown  world-wide 
as  proof  unquestionable  that  the  actor  was  the  author  of  these 
plays  i 


XVI 

CIPHERS 

The  use  of  the  cipher  in  court  and  camp,  to  which  originally 
it  had  been  confined,  appears  to  have  attained  its  highest  effi- 
ciency in  the  seventeenth  century,  when,  escaping  the  limits  of 
authority,  it  found  more  popular  fields  for  expansion.  Could 
we  but  read,  beneath  the  commonplace  phrasing  of  many 
documents  which  we  study  in  public  archives  and  historical 
collections,  the  secrets  which  they  enshrine,  history  would 
have  a  new  meaning  for  us.  Formerly  people  who  exercised 
power  maintained  decipherers,  whose  business  it  was  to  trans- 
late the  secret  messages  which  the  correspondence  of  their 
employers  contained.  We  know  that  Walsingham,  the  Queen's 
Minister  in  Paris,  once  ventured  to  leave  his  post,  and  journey 
hot  foot  to  London,  to  communicate  personally  with  Elizabeth, 
as  he  was  unwilling  that  her  decipherers  should  know  what 
he  desired  to  say  to  her.  Spedding  says  that  Francis  and  An- 
thony Bacon  employed  a  number  of  writers,  "receiving  letters 
which  were  mostly  in  cipher,"  and  that  these  passed  through 
the  hands  of  Francis  "to  the  Earl  of  Essex  deciphered." 

In  one  of  Anthony's  letters  directed  to  Francis  at  Court, 
September  ii,  1593,  he  says  that  his  servant  Edward  Yates 
having  lost  his  letters,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  recover  his 
cipher  that  night.  ^  Spedding's  allusion  to  writers  employed  by 
the  Bacons  in  their  Scriptorium,  begun  at  Gray's  Inn,  and  later 
removed  toTwickenham,  we  have  mentioned  before  as  much  like 
the  typewriting  office  of  to-day.  It  was  convenient  for  their  offi- 
cial and  literary  work,  and  served  also  to  increase  their  income. 

Bacon  speaks  of  six  ciphers,  in  a  manner  which  implies  that 

^  Thomas  Birch,  D.D.,  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  vol.  i,  p.121. 
London,  1754. 

S2I 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

he  made  use  of  them,  of  which  the  biliteral  seems  to  have 
been  the  principal  one,  and  for  several  years  students  of 
ciphers  have  been  attempting  to  discover  and  apply  them  to 
his  works,  especially,  the  "Shakespeare''  Works.  The  first 
was  Ignatius  Donnelly,  who  endeavored  to  elucidate  one  of 
them.  His  work  is  a  marvel  of  patient  study,  and  has  at- 
tracted wide  attention.  That  he  was  perfectly  honest  in  his 
application  of  his  theory,  and  fully  believed  in  it,  no  one  can 
reasonably  doubt.  Unfortunately,  he  died  without  leaving 
sufficient  data  to  enable  any  one,  thus  far,  to  continue  his 
work,  and  we  now  hear  little  about  it  except  abuse. 

We  have  given  elsewhere  the  inscription  on  the  stone  which 
covered  the  actor's  grave,  as  it  was  originally,  viz. :  — 

Good  Frend  for  Jesus  SAKE  forbeare 
To  diGG  T-E  Dust  Enclo-Ased  HE.Re. 
Blese  be  T-E  Man  y  spares  T.Es  Stones 
And  curst  be  He  y  nioves  my  Bones. 

The  remarkable,  and,  we  venture  to  say,  the  unique  man- 
ner in  which  this  inscription  is  written  is  inexplicable  by  any 
known  rules.  The  word  "SAKE"  in  capitals,  when  if  any 
word  on  the  first  line  should  have  been  so  written  it  was  the 
word  "Jesus";  the  capital  GG  in  "diGG";  the  dash  and  capi- 
tal^ in  "Enclo-Ased" ;  the  period  in  the  middle  and  at  the  end 
of  "HE.Re."  have  discouraged  attempts  at  explanation.  But 
one  man,  Ignatius  Donnelly,  who  not  only  possessed  a  never- 
flagging  spirit  of  research,  but  a  mathematical  mind  of  unusual 
clearness,  attempted  it,  and  this  is  his  interpretation :"  Francis 
Bacon  wrote  the  Greene,  Marlowe,  and  Shakespeare  Plays." 
He  did  this  by  the  biliteral  cipher  found  in  Bacon's  "De  Aug- 
mentis,"  by  reading  it  through  and  reversing  the  process  where 
the  peculiarities  we  have  named  occur.  Space  will  not  permit 
a  full  explanation  of  the  method,  and  we  refer  the  reader  to 
Donnelly's  book,  from  which  the  above  epitaph  is  taken.  ^ 

^  Ignatius  Donnelly,  The  Cipher  in  the  Plays  and  on  the  Tombstone.  Minne- 
apolis, 1899.  Cf.  The  Great  Cryptogram.  Chicago,  1888.  C.  A.  Montgomery, 
Shakespear's  Anagrams.    New  York,  1910. 

522 


CIPHERS 

THE   WORD-CIPHER 

Dr.  Orville  W.  Owen  claims  to  have  discovered  Bacon's 
word-cipher,  and  by  it  has  "translated"  from  his  philosophical 
works,  and  others  bearing  the  name  of  Shakspere,  Spenser, 
Green,  Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Burton,  several  volumes  of  prose 
and  poetry  hitherto  unheard  of;  indeed,  they  greet  us  like 
strange  visitants  from  those  far-off  days,  when  Elizabeth  and 
James  thought  themselves  essential  to  the  existence  of  our 
forefathers.  Translated,  however,  is  hardly  the  proper  word ; 
constructed  would  be  better,  for  they  are  composed  of  de- 
tached lines  taken  from  a  large  number  of  works  according 
to  certain  guide-  and  key-words,  which  reveal  where  such 
excerpts  should  begin  and  end.  The  works  which  Dr. 
Owen  introduces  to  us  are  remarkable,  not  only  for  intrin- 
sic merit,  but  for  their  bearing  upon  history.  In  them  not 
only  Bacon's  early  life  is  disclosed,  but  secrets  of  state  as 
well. 

We  give  a  single  brief  example  of  the  method  of  the  word- 
cipher.  To  apply  it  extracts  are  taken  from  various  works,  and 
brought  together  to  form  a  continuous  chain  of  thought ;  the 
decipherer  being  guided  by  certain  guide-  and  key-words, 
which  we  shall  explain  more  fully  hereafter:  — 

The  Prelude  to  a  Storm 

The  day  is  clear  the  welkin  bright  and  gay 

The  lark  is  merry  and  records  her  note  {Peele) 

The  thrush  replies  the  mavis  descant  plays 

The  ousel  shrills  the  ruddock  warbles  soft 

So  goodly  all  agree  with  sweet  content 

To  this  gladsome  day  of  merriment.  {Faerie  Queene) 

Fair  blows  the  gale  {Marlowe) 

From  the  South  furrowed  Neptune's  seas 

Northeast  as  far  as  the  frozen  Rhine  {Greene) 

The  bright  sun  thereon  his  beams  doth  beat 

As  if  he  nought  but  peace  and  pleasure  meant       {Faerie  Queene) 

A  solid  mass  of  gold  {Anatomy  of  Melancholy) 

As  a  mirror  glass  the  surface  of  the  water  {Bacon) 

Reflected  in  my  sight  as  doth  a  crystal  mirror  in  the  sun     {Peele) 

523 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

This  method  of  joining  lines  so  as  to  make  sense  is  not 
unknown,  but  has  never  been  attempted  on  a  large  scale,  or 
by  following  hidden  guides.  What  makes  this,  however, 
unique  in  the  history  of  literature  is  the  revelation  it  makes, 
and  the  ingenious  method  which  it  displays. 

The  first  volume  of  Dr.  Owen's  work  begins  with  this 
remarkable  letter:  — 

Sir  Francis  Bacon^s  Letter  to  the  decipherer 

London,  1623. 
My  dear  Sir:  — 

Thus  leaning  on  my  elbow  I  begin  the  letter  scattered  wider 
than  the  sky  and  earth:  — 

And  yet  the  spacious  breath  of  this  division, 

As  it  spreads  round  in  the  widest  circle, 

Admits  the  mingling  of  the  four  great  guides  we  use, 

So  that  we  have  no  need  of  any  minute  rule 

To  make  the  opening  of  our  device 

Appear  as  plainly  to  you  as  the  sun.  .  .  . 

And  for  fear  that  you  would  go  astray  from  our  design 

Before  you  had  your  powers  well  put  on, 

We  have  marked  out  a  plan  in  this  epistle 

To  communicate  to  you  how  our  great  cipher  cues  combine. 

This  letter  which  is  really  a  dialogue  between  the  author 
and  his  future  decipherer,  covers  forty-three  pages,  and  in  it 
we  are  told  the  works  in  which  a  cipher  is  used. 

The  writer  says :  — 

We  will  enumerate  them  by  their  whole  title, 
From  the  beginning  to  the  end;  William  Shakespeare, 
Robert  Green,  George  Peele  and  Christopher  Marlow's 
Stage  Plays;  The  Fairy  Queene,  Shepherd's  Calendar, 
And  all  the  works  of  Edmund  Spenser; 

The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  of  Robert  Burton,  —  and  all  the 
other  works  of  our  own. 

Certainly  this  sets  forth  a  formidable  task  for  any  one  to 
attempt.  Dr.  Owen  calling  attention  to  some  of  the  difficulties 
of  his  undertaking,  remarks:  — 

Bacon's  Philosophical  Works  were  written  in  Latin,  and  we 
have  the  translations  only  to  study;  thus  a  second  party's  render- 

524  • 


CIPHERS 

ing  of  the  original  thoughts,  which  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
would  not  be  exact.  Then  from  the  Plays  and  other  works,  which 
have  come  down  to  us  in  the  old  English  of  1623,  and  from  these 
translations  of  the  Latin  text  has  to  be  extracted  the  connected 
Story  through  the  means  of  the  Cipher  Keys.  The  student,  on 
reflection,  will  admit  it  would  be  impossible  to  so  fit  and  join 
the  words  and  sentences,  as  to  make  all  smoothly  read  in  the 
exact  metre,  rhythm  and  measure  of  the  highest  literary  pro- 
ductions of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Mr.  George  P.  Goodale  makes  the  following  comments  upon 
Dr.  Owen's  work :  — 

The  existence  of  a  cipher  by  use  of  which  these  stories  are  re- 
vealed is  an  indisputable  fact.  The  stories  are  not  Dr.  Owen's 
inventions.  He  did  not  compose  them,  for  the  reason  that  neither 
he  nor  any  man  that  lives  is  gifted  with  the  surpassing  genius  to 
do  it.  Nobody  has  the  right  to  pass  judgment  on  the  discovery 
who  has  not  first  read  the  book. 

And  he  makes  an  extract  from  Bacon  ending  thus :  — 

It  is  not  probable  that  a  man  that  is  slavishly  bent  upon  blind, 
stupid  and  absurd  objections,  will  bestow  time  and  work  enough 
upon  this  to  make  trial  of  the  chain.  Such  a  man  is  not  entitled 
to  judge  and  decide  upon  these  questions. 

Besides  the  account  of  Bacon's  early  life  and  various  secret 
matters  of  history,  Dr.  Owen  gives  us  several  dramas,  namely: 
"The  Tragedy  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots";  ''The  Spanish 
Armada" ;  the  story  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon's  life,  in  blank  verse, 
and  the  tragedy  of  Essex.  Of  these  the  Spanish  Armada  is 
the  most  to  be  admired,  though  it  contains  lines  open  to 
criticism,  no  more  so,  however,  than  some  in  the  "Shake- 
speare" Plays.  Perhaps  we  should  quote  here  Owen's  own 
words :  — 

The  first  book  of  the  deciphered  writings  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon 
has  had  an  unusual  experience.  It  was  published  and  sent  forth 
without  preface  or  word  of  explanation,  with  the  desire  that  the 
public  should  form  its  own  judgment  upon  the  matter  contained 
in  it. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Dissatisfaction  has  been  felt  by  readers  that  some  parts  of 
the  deciphered  material  are  not  equal  in  literary  power,  poetic 
thought,  nor  artistic  construction  to  the  known  efforts  of  Shake- 
speare or  Bacon.  This  is  doubtless  true,  especially  in  those  parts 
of  the  story  in  which  the  necessities  for  concealment  were  so 
great  as  to  make  the  difficulties  of  the  cipher  serious,  and  artistic 
reconstruction  impossible. 

This,  he  tells  us,  Bacon  himself  realized,  quoting  in  evidence 
from  cipher  in  the  "Novum  Organum,''  and  "As  You  Like 
It."  ' 

And  for  the  sake  of 

Our  own  safety,  we  executed  the  work  in  short 

And  scattered  sentences,  linked  together  in  rude  lines, 

And  any  reader  of  moderate  sagacity 

And  intelligence  should  see  our  manner  of  writing 

This  history  (as  it  actually  and  really  is) 

Is  such  that  it  could  not  be  compounded  and  divided. 

Composed,  decomposed,  and  composed  again  in  manifold  ways, 

And  made  to  mingle  and  unite  by  fits  and  starts, 

And  be  in  verse.   It  will  be  found  the  feet  are 

Weak  and  lame,  even  in  the  blank  verse. 

We  hold  no  brief  for  Dr.  Owen,  but  deem  it  proper,  in  a 
comprehensive  work  of  this  character,  to  give  a  fair  explana- 
tion of  his  method.  The  results  he  has  achieved  are  startling, 
and  the  reader  will  be  repaid  by  examining  the  several  books 
which  he  has  published.  While  he  may  have  made  a  serious 
mistake  in  his  Quixotic  attempts  to  discover  relics  of  Bacon 
by  excavations  on  the  banks  of  the  Wye,  a  mistake  which  has 
evoked  a  tempest  of  ridicule,  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  he  has 
devoted  many  years  of  his  life  to  the  most  exacting  labor  under 
discouraging  conditions,  in  order  to  give  the  world  what  he 
conceives  to  be  an  important  discovery,  which,  if  his  method 
is  sound,  it  assuredly  is.  The  writer  has  been  unable  to  give 
Dr.  Owen's  work  the  exacting  study  which  it  demands,  and 
is  therefore  incompetent  to  pass  judgment  upon  it  worthy  of 

'  Orville  W.  Owen>  M.D.,  Sir  Francis  Bacon's  Cipher  Story y  vol.  i,  p.  I. 
Detroit,  1894. 

526 


CIPHERS 

critical  attention,  but  some  unbiased  mind  should  give  it  care- 
ful study,  and  bestow  upon  the  reading  public  the  benefit  of 
his  labor.  No  more  useful  work  could  be  performed  by  a 
writer  than  an  authoritative  exposition  of  the  validity  or 
invalidity  of  Dr.  Owen's  work. 

METHOD   OF   APPLYING  THE   WORD-CIPHER  IN   THE 
PROLOGUE   TO  ANNE    BOLEYN 

The  '* Argument''  shows  that  the  scene  opens  at  the  palace, 
when  the  King  first  comes  under  the  spell  of  Anne's  beauty, 
but  the  keys  preceding  Henry  VHI  make  it  clear  that  there  is 
something  given,  before  the  opening  scene  of  the  play  —  this 
would  necessarily  be  a  Prologue. 

In  searching  for  the  keys.  King  Henry  VII,  Katherine, 
Prince  Arthur,  Spaine,  etc.,  one  sees  that  the  story  of  Kather- 
ine's  marriage  was  the  introduction  to  the  tragedy  of  Anne 
Boleyn  —  the  key  to  the  situation,  we  may  say. 

The  original  form  of  the  Prologue  is  indicated  by  the  ease 
with  which  the  passages,  by  a  simple  change  of  tense,  are 
made  to  fall  into  the  verse  of  the  opening  lines. 

"Truth"  points  to  Burton,  that  is  the  "Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly," where  on  page  488,  line  47,  of  the  3d  edition,  —  or 
part  3,  section  2,  mem.  3,  line  1252,  —  is  the  name  and  title, 
Ferdinand,  King  of  Spaine.  The  name  and  place  are  all  that 
are  required,  because  all  that  follows  merely  suggests  that  the 
Moores  —  one  in  "Othello,"  the  other  in  "Titus  Andronicus," 
will  lead  to  some  part  of  the  Prologue.  The  notes  should  show 
this. 

To  recapitulate,  and  illustrate  further:  — 

The  Key  —  KING  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH  (Title,  p.  205) 

The  joining  words  —  PRESENT,  &  THOSE  THAT  COME  TO  SEE  A 

SHOW  =  SPECTATORS 
The  Guide  —  TRUTH  =  BURTON 
The  Key  —  SPAINE  (J  of  M.,  p.  488) 
The  1st  joining  words  — PRESENT  &  SPECTATORS 
The  2d  joining  words  —  END,  FERDINANDO,  &  DANGER 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  Guide  —  TIME  =  BACON 

The  Key  —  SPAINE  {Henry  VII,  p.  196) 

The  ist  joining  words —  END,  FERDINANDO,  &  DANGERS 

The  2d  joining  words  —  SUCCESSION,  &  BLOUD 

The  Guide  —  ENVY  =  SHAKESPEARE 

The  Keys  —  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH,  &  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH 

{Henry  Fill,  p.  212) 
The  1st  joining  words  — END,  BLOUD,  &  SUCCEEDING 
The  2d  joining  words  —  EDWARD,  &  STATE 
The  Guide  —  TIME  =  BACON 
The  iT^yj  — HENRY  THE  EIGHTH,  KATHERINE,  &  PRINCE 

ARTHUR  {Henry  VII,  p.  196) 
The  1st  joining  words  —  EDWARD,  &  STATE 
The  2d  joining  words  —  PART 
The  Guide  —  ENVY = SHAKESPEARE 
The  Key  —  RAGE  {equivalent  of  fury)  —  {Othello,  p.  j2o) 
The  1st  joining  word  —  PART 
The  2d  joining  words,  FORGET,  &  FOLLOWING 
The  Guide  —  TIME  =  BACON 

The  Key  —  PRINCE  OF  WALES  {Henry  VII,  p.  205) 
The  1st  joining  words  —  FOLLOWING,  &  FORGOTTEN 
The  2d  joining  words — YE  ARES — sent  further  on  in  BACON  by  TIME, 

and  to  SHAKESPEARE  by  STARRES 
1st  —  The  Guide  —  TIME  =  BACON 
The  Keys  —  KATHERINE,  &  PRINCE  OF  WALES  {Henry  VII,  p. 

207) 
The  1st  joining  words  —  PART,  FOLLOWING,  &  YEARES 
The  2d  joining  words  —  PROVIDENCE  =FATE 
2d  —  The  Guide  —  STARRES  =  SHAKESPEARE 
The  Z^y  — MINION  one  meaning  of  which  is  AGENT  =  NUNCIO 

{Richard  III,  p.  196) 
The  1st  joining  word  —  FATE 
The  2d  joining  words —  BIGVLE^  (=HIES),  MURTHER,  &  VIL- 

LAINE 
The  Keys  —  KING  &  GOVERNORS  {Henry  VI,  p.  137) 
The  1st  joining  words  —  CREPT,  MURTHER,  &  VILLAINE 
The  2d  joining  words  — 0\JK  KING,  &  REVENGING 
The  Key  —  FACTOR=AGENT=NUNCIO  {Richard  III,  p.  196) 
The  1st  joining  words  —  HARRIE  {name  of  our  king)  &  REVENGE 
The  2d  joining  words  —  MOTHER,  WIFE,  GOD 
The  Key  —  KING  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH  {Henry  VIII,  p.  231) 
The  1st  joining  word  —  GOD 
The  2d  joining  word  —  SPEAK 
The  Key  —  ROME  {Titus  Andronicus,  p.  51) 
The  1st  joining  word  —  SPEAK 
The  2d  joining  words  —  FATALL  &  MAN 

528 


CIPHERS 

The  Keys  —  TOWER,  &  FRANCE  (/  Henry  VI,  p.  lod) 

The  istjoinmg  words  —  ^VY.AK,  FATALL,  &  MEN 

The  2d  joining  words  —  PLAY 

The  Key  —  FRANCE  {Henry  VI,  p.  loi) 

The  1st  joining  words  —  MEN,  &  PLAYED 

The  2d  joining  words  —  PRAISE 

The  Keys  —  KING,  &  FRANCE  {Love's  Labours  Lost,  p.  130) 

The  joining  word  —  PRAISE 

Note:  —  The  ist  joining  words  point  to  the  passage  preceding:  the 
2d  joining  words,  to  the  one  following. 

It  is  evident  that  the  task  of  selecting  from  a  large  number  of 
books,  some  perhaps  in  Latin,  lines  that  will  make  a  connected 
narrative  when  joined  together,  would  be  formidable.  It 
would  require  not  only  critical  discrimination  of  a  high  char- 
acter, but  unflagging  persistence  worthy  of  a  great  cause; 
indeed,  without  a  method,  the  task  would  seem  to  be  a  hopeless 
one.  This  method  is  disclosed  in  the  letter  to  the  decipherer. 
It  consists  of  two  large  cylinders  upon  which  is  rolled  a  thou- 
sand feet  of  cloth,  about  twenty-six  inches  wide,  and  upon 
which  is  pasted  the  leaves  of  the  books  to  be  deciphered. 
Upon  the  cylinder  farthest  from  the  decipherer  the  cloth  is 
wound,  the  end  being  secured  to  the  cylinder  directly  in  front 
of  him,  which  being  turned  toward  him  brings  the  leaves 
of  the  books  directly  before  his  eyes.  The  guide-words  are 
first  found  and  a  line  drawn  under  them.  Associated  with 
these  are  key-words,  and  sentences  containing  them  are  en- 
closed. These  sentences  are  then  read  to  typists  who  print 
them  upon  sheets  of  paper  and  head  them  with  the  key-words 
for  convenience  in  selecting.  As  the  guide-  and  key-words  are 
numerous,  the  task  is  no  easy  one. 

Dr.  Owen  worked  upwards  of  seven  years  to  learn  how  to 
unravel  the  mysteries  of  his  discovery.  By  instructing  assist- 
ants he  was  finally  able  to  leave  the  work  of  deciphering  to 
them.  It  would  be  strange  if  errors  in  Dr.  Owen's  work  were 
not  made,  and  it  is  likely  to  require  a  more  critical  study  than 
has  thus  far  been  bestowed  upon  it  to  clear  it  of  errors. 

529 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

THE    BILITERAL  CIPHER 

While  at  the  French  Court,  Francis  Bacon  invented  the 
cipher  now  known  as  the  biliteral  which  he  describes  in  his 
"De  Augmentis."  Though  we  would  gladly  avoid  duplicating 
what  has  already  been  quoted  by  Mrs.  Gallup  and  several 
others,  it  seems  necessary  to  do  so.  This  is  Bacon's  explana- 
tion of  this,  the  most  interesting  of  all  ciphers: — • 

As  for  Writing,  it  is  performed  either  by  the  common  alphabet 
—  or  by  a  secret  and  private  one,  agreed  upon  by  particular  per- 
sons, which  they  call  ciphers  —  Of  these  there  are  many  kinds : 
simple  ciphers;  ciphers  mixed  with  non-significant  characters; 
ciphers  containing  two  different  letters  in  one  character;  wheel 
ciphers;  key  ciphers;  word  ciphers,  and  the  like. 

It  is  requisite,  he  continues,  that  they  be  easy  and  not  labori- 
ous to  write;  that  they  be  safe  and  impossible  to  be  deciphered; 
and  such  as  not  to  raise  suspicion.  For  if  letters  fall  into  the  hands 
of  those  who  have  power  either  over  the  writers,  or  over  those  to 
whom  they  are  addressed,  although  the  cipher  itself  may  be  safe 
and  impossible  to  decipher,  yet  the  matter  comes  under  examina- 
tion and  question;  unless  the  cipher  be  such  as  either  to  raise  no 
suspicion  or  to  elude  inquiry.  Now  for  this  elusion  of  inquiry, 
there  is  a  new  and  useful  contrivance  for  it,  which,  as  I  have  it 
by  me,  why  should  I  set  it  down  among  the  desiderata,  instead 
of  propounding  the  thing  itself.^  It  is  this:  let  a  man  have  two 
alphabets,  one  of  true  letters,  the  other  of  non-significants;  and 
let  him  enfold  in  them  two  letters  at  once;  one  carrying  the  secret, 
the  other  such  a  letter  as  the  writer  would  have  been  likely  to 
send,  and  yet  without  anything  dangerous.  Then  if  anyone  be 
strictly  examined  as  to  the  cipher,  let  him  offer  the  alphabet  of 
true  letters  for  non-significants.  Thus  the  examiner  will  fall  upon 
the  exterior  letter;  which  finding  probable,  he  will  not  suspect 
anything  of  another  letter  within.  But  for  avoiding  suspicion 
altogether,  I  will  add  another  contrivance,  which  I  devised  my- 
self when  I  was  at  Paris  In  my  early  youth,  and  which  I  still  think 
worthy  of  preservation.  For  It  has  the  perfection  of  a  cipher, 
which  is  to  make  anything  signify  anything;  subject  however  to 
this  condition,  that  the  infolding  writing  shall  contain  at  least 
five  times  as  many  letters  as  the  writing  Infolded;  no  other  con- 
dition or  restriction  whatever  Is  required.    The  way  to  do  it  is 

530 


CIPHERS 

this :  First  let  all  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  be  resolved  into  trans- 
positions of  two  letters  only.  For  the  transposition  of  two  letters 
through  five  places  will  yield  thirty-two  differences;  much  more 
twenty-four  which  is  the  number  of  letters  in  our  alphabet. 
Here  is  an  example  of  such  an  alphabet:  — 


Ji^ 


d    'S     e,  5zr   f  .     „ 

ff     ^       ^      £^     <J    * 

cSlaa.awap  'appm  .apPpP.paa<ici.paaaU' 

^    V     V)     00    y    s^ 

EXAMPLE  OF  AN  ALPHABET  IN  TWO  LETTERS 

Nor  is  it  a  slight  thing  which  is  thus  by  the  way  affected. 
For  hence  we  see  how  thoughts  may  be  communicated  at  any 
distance  of  place  by  means  of  any  objects  perceptible  either  to 
the  eye  or  ear,  provided  only  that  those  objects  are  capable 
of  two  differences;  as  by  bells,  trumpets,  torches,  gunshots, 
and  the  like.  But  to  proceed  to  our  business :  when  you  prepare 
to  write,  you  must  reduce  the  interior  epistle  to  this  biliteral 
alphabet. 

He  then  gives  us  the  alphabet  containing  letters  from  two 
different  fonts,^  and  taking  the  following  message,  "Do  not 
go  till  I  come,"  encloses  in  it  the  instruction  "  Fly." 

To  do  this  he  divides  the  message  into  groups  of  five  letters 
thus: 

Do     not/     go     til/1     I     com/e. 

aa     bab.  ab     aba.  b     abba. 
1  See  p.  532. 

S3I 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS     . 

cc%  p.a.p.  cL. P'.d^p.cS.aB.ii' p  G.p, 

3'.0:i.iM/£.{£C.rJ.0C.m.m . 

^'   p*  A. p.  a^  /.  a.p^  a*l>'ap^a'P^(iS* 


'W.w.tP.^.'^.x.%y.^yr.%:^^ 


In  the  exhibit  above  shown,  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  third 
and  fifth  h  indicates  F^  the  second  and  fourth,  /,  and  the  first, 
third,  and  fourth,  y.  All,  then,  that  is  necessary  is  to  make  the 
third  and  fifth  letter  in  the  first  group  slightly  different  to 
indicate  that  it  is  F;  the  second  and  fourth  in  the  next  group 
to  indicate  that  it  is  /,  and  the  first,  third,  and  fourth  in  the 
third  to  indicate  that  it  is  y. 

This  cipher  can  be  written  and  put  in  type,  with  rapidity 

S32 


CIPHERS 

and  ease  when  the  letters  for  the  second  font  are  marked.  The 
"De  Augmentis,"  from  which  Bacon's  instructions  are  taken, 
is  in  Latin,  hence  the  word  "Fly"  is  "Fuge,"  which  neces- 
sitates a  change.  This  is  as  it  appears  in  the  original. 

<f      V     S     '^ 

d  abab.b   aa  b  baa   d  d a  aa  baa. 

Bacon  then  continues :  — 

1  add  another  large  example  of  the  same  cipher,  —  of  the 
writing  of  anything  by  anything. 

The  interior  epistle;  for  which  I  have  selected  the  Spartan 
despatch,  formerly  sent  in  the  Scytale:  — 

All  is  lost.  Mindarus  is  killed.  The  soldiers  want  food.  We  can 
neither  get  hence,  nor  stay  longer  here. 

The  exterior  epistle,  taken  from  Cicero's  first  letter  and  con- 
taining the  Spartan  despatch  within  it:  — 

In  all  duty  or  rather  piety  towards  you  I  satisfy  every  body  ex- 
cept myself.  Myself  I  never  satisfy.  For  so  great  are  the  serv- 
ices which  you  have  rendered  me,  that  seeing  you  dia  not  rest  in 
your  endeavours  on  my  behalf  till  the  thing  was  done,  I  feel  as  if  life 
had  lost  all  its  sweetness,  because  I  cannot  do  as  much  in  this  cause 
of  yours.  The  occasions  are  these:  Ammonius  the  'King^s  ambassa- 
dor openly  besieges  us  with  money;  the  business  is  carried  on  through 
the  same  creditors  who  were  employed  in  it  when  you  were  here,  etc.^ 

The  doctrine  of  Ciphers  carries  along  with  it  another  doctrine, 
which  is  its  relative.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  deciphering,  or  of 
detecting  ciphers,  though  one  be  quite  Ignorant  of  the  alphabet 
used  or  the  private  understanding  between  the  parties;  a  thing 
requiring  both  labour  and  Ingenuity,  and  dedicated,  as  the  other 
likewise  Is,  to  the  secret  of  princes.  By  skilful  precaution  indeed 
it  may  be  made  useless;  though  as  things  are  it  Is  of  very  great 
use.  For  If  good  and  safe  ciphers  were  Introduced,  there  are  very 
many  of  them  which  altogether  elude  and  exclude  the  deci- 
pherer, and  yet  are  sufficiently  convenient  and  ready  to  read  and 
write.  But  such  is  the  rawness  and  unskilfulness  of  secretaries 
and  clerks  in  the  court  of  kings,  that  the  greatest  matters  are 
commonly  trusted  to  weak  and  futile  ciphers. ^ 

^  From  translation  of  Gilbert  Watts. 

2  James  Spedding,  M.A.,  The  Works  of  Francis  Bacon,  vol.  ix,  pp.  115-20. 
Boston,  1864. 

S33 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

We  quote  at  length  because  it  is  so  common  for  people  when 
the  cipher  is  mentioned  to  exclaim,  "Lee,  Collins,  and  the  best 
Shaksperian  scholars  long  ago  exploded  that  fraud."  It  there- 
fore seems  necessary  to  set  such  objectors  right  by  showing 
that  Bacon  was  an  expert  in  ciphers.  The  only  question,  then, 
to  consider  is,  Did  he  employ  them  in  the  works  which  he 
wrote,  whether  anonymously  or  under  pseudonyms,  for  rea- 
sons of  safety  or  policy? 

The  biliteral  cipher  has  been  applied  by  Mrs.  Gallup  both  to 
Bacon's  philosophical  works  and  the  plays  with  interesting 
results.  As  we  have  familiarized  ourselves  with  it,  let  us  use  it 
for  an  experiment ;  and  first  we  will  examine  the  adulatory  ad- 
dress of  I.  M.  in  the  First  Folio  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works, 
which  is  especially  quoted  in  favor  of  the  actor's  authorship, 
and  therefore  furnishes  us  with  an  excellent  example. 

To  tliememorie  ofM.fT.Sha^'Jpeare. 

'%J^^EEwondred(ShdkQ-fyQarc)  that  thou  went'Jlfo/oone 

From  the  Worlds::Stage^tothe  Graues-Tyring-roome. 
Wee  thought  thee  dead,  but  this  thy  printed  ^orth^ 
Teh  thy  Spectators, that  thou  ti?entyi  ht  forth 
To  enter  ^ith  applaufe.  An  AHors  Art^ 
Qan  dye, and  Hue, to  aEle  a  fecond part. 
That's  hut  an  Exit  ofMortalitie ; 
This, a  ^-entrance  ton  flaudite. 

I  M. 

To  get  at  the  secret  message  which  this  address  contains  we 
must  remember  that  the  letter  a  indicates  the  first,  and  the 
letter  b  the  second  font  which  carries  the  cipher. 

By  referring  to  the  biliteral  alphabet  it  will  be  seen  that 
when  I.  M.'s  address  is  divided  into  groups  of  five  letters,  if 
the  first  and  fifth  letters,  whether  capitals  or  not,  are  from 

534 


CIPHERS 

the  second  or  b  font,  we  have  S;  if  the  third  in  the  next  group, 
E;  if  none  of  the  letters  in  the  next  group  are  from  the  second 
font,  we  have  A;  if  the  first  letter  in  the  next  is,  we  have  R; 
if  the  fourth  in  the  next,  C;  and  if  the  three  last  in  the  next,  we 
have  H.  We  now  have  the  word  "Search."  If  we  apply  this 
process  to  the  entire  address,  we  have  this  startling  message : 
"Search  for  keyes  the  headings  of  the  comedies.  Francis 
Baron  of  Verulam."  This  will  be  seen  in  the  following  par- 
adigm :  — 

fp  A  R  C  H  P 

_    he  mejQOr  ieofM  WShak  espeja  reTOIR  wondr 

O  ^  TC  5*  V  "R  ^ 

edsha  kespe  areth  attho  uwerit  8t£0  8  £oneP 

romth  e^orl  dsSta  getot  heGra  uesTy  ringr 

I^  N  G  S  OPT 

oomeW  eetho  ughtt  heede^  adbut  thirst  hypri 

HP  COM  ED 

ntedw  orthT  elsth  ySpec   tator  ethat  thouW 

T  -p  S  *^  R  A  IT 

entst  butf  0  rtliT£  eniex^  witha  pplau  seAnA 

xC       ,1^^       ^s        ^b""  "a      ^   R  0^ 

ctors  ArtCa  ndyea  ndliu  etoac  t^ease  condp 

artTh  atj^u  ta&x  UofM  ortal  uleT  hisaR 

e£nt^r  ancet   oaPla  udite. 

I.M. 


The  First  Folio  of  1623,  printed  by  William  Jaggard,  and 
the  Second  of  1632,  by  Thomas  Cotes,  reveal  the  remarkable 
fact  that  fonts  of  ty^t  of  the  same  forms  appear  in  both.  A 
comparison  of  the  introductory  poem  by  Leonard  Digges,  for 
instance,  plainly  discloses  this.  There  is  also  a  difference  in 
the  spelling  of  several  words,  as  well  as  a  different  placing  of 
the  second  or  h  font  letters.  The  purpose  of  this  rearrange- 
ment of  letters,  it  is  explained,  was  to  enfold  a  different  mes- 
sage in  the  later  issue  which  Rawley  was  instrumental  in 

S3S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

publishing.  It  should  be  noted  also  that  the  two  fonts  may  be 
used  interchangeably;  in  other  words,  to  add  to  the  difficulty 
of  deciphering,  the  a  font  can  be  used  for  the  h  font  on  a 
message  or  part  of  a  message. 

The  complete  cipher  message  in  Digges's  poem  in  the  First 
Folio  is  as  follows :  — 

Francis  of  Verulam  is  author  of  all  the  plays  heretofore  pub- 
lished by  Marlowe,  Greene,  Peele,  Shakespeare,  and  of  the 
twenty-two  now  put  out  for  the  first  time.  Some  are  alter'd  to 
continue  his  history.    Fr.  St.  A. 

The  message  in  the  same  poem  in  the  Second  Folio  by 
Rawley  begins  thus :  — 

Many  old  poems  of  Sp.  and  Sh.  at  a  due  time  (will)  shew 
mayhap,  w'ch  MSS.  F.  hid.  But  such  nere  won  great  praise  — 
look'd,  men  now  say,  so  faire,  etc. 

This  is  but  a  part  of  a  longer  message  by  Rawley  beginning 
with  the  poem  "Upon  the  Effigies."  The  abbreviations  and 
elisions,  made  in  it  for  brevity,  render  it  somewhat  obscure. 
Not  only  were  the  same  emblematic  head-pieces  and  colo- 
phons used  by  Bacon  in  various  works,  but  the  same  type,  and 
this  practice  was  continued  by  Rawley  after  his  death. 

It  occurred  to  us  that  the  best  test  of  Mrs.  Gallup's  trust- 
worthiness as  a  decipherer  would  be  to  enfold  in  the  body  of 
the  "I.  M.  Poem"  a  combination  of  German  words,  and 
submit  it  to  her.  We  therefore  had  a  photograph,  many  times 
enlarged,  made  of  the  poem,  from  which  the  letters  were  cut, 
and  an  alphabet  made  of  the  two  fonts  of  type  in  which  it  was 
printed.  Though  time  and  patience  had  been  devoted  to  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  letters  ^,  n,  e^  o,  u,  and  r,  the  proper 
ones  were  selected  as  nearly  as  possible,  pasted  upon  a  large 
sheet  of  cardboard,  and  then  photographed  down  to  the  origi- 
nal size  as  found  in  the  Folio.  This  we  mailed  Mrs.  Gallup 
requesting  her  to  favor  us  by  deciphering  it.  In  due  time  we 
received,  with  an  apology  for  her  "  rusty  German,"  the 
following :  — 

536 


CIPHERS 

Search  Kaiser  Kultur  Krieg  Tod  gemachten  Macht  1st  Rachen 
of  Verulam. 

While  this  contained  several  errors,  we  regarded  it  as  a 
remarkable  exhibition  of  Mrs.  Gallup's  skill,  for  we  found  that 
we  had  misplaced  some  letters.  To  make  our  test  more  diffi- 
cult the  words  comprising  the  hidden  word  "Search"  were 
left  unchanged,  and  were  followed  by  our  strange  combination 
of  words  which  used  up  all  the  letters  in  the  word  "Baron" 
in  the  Folio  but  the  last  letter  n.  This  stray  letter,  however, 
was  not  the  stumbling-block  which  we  expected  it  to  be,  for 
Mrs.  Gallup  recognized  and  included  the  meaningless  letter  in 
her  exhibit.  We  then  corrected  the  work  as  carefully  as  pos- 
sible and  returned  it  for  revision.  To  our  great  satisfaction  it 
proved  to  be  correct,  and  we  here  give  her  reply:  — 

Regarding  the  billteral  example  I  have  examined  the  correc- 
tions and  find  them  quite  right.  Everything  else  being  as  before, 
it  reads  —  Search  Kaiser  Kultur  Krieg  und  Schlachten  Macht  ist 
Recht,  n  of  Verulam.    Her  solution  and  the  poem  follow. 

SEA      R    C     H      K 
Tothe  memor  ieofM  WShak  espea  reTOIE  wondr 

A.     I     S     E     R     K     U 
jedSloa  ke^spe  areth  attho  uwent  st^sos  ooneP 

L    JP    u'^RK     R    ""l 
romth  eWorl  dsSta  g.etot  heGra  uesTy  ringr 

B    G      U     N     I)     S     C 
oomeW  eetho  ughtt  heede  ad"but.  thiBt  hypri 

H    L      A     C    H      T     E 
ntedw  orthT  elsth  ySpe^c  tator  £that  thow 

N     M      A     C     H     T     I 
entst  butfo  rtnTo  enter  wltha  gplau  seAnA 


q      T      R     E      C      H      T 
ctor£  ArtCa  ndyea  ndliu  etoac  tease  condp 

"tr      0     E     V 
artTh  at£bu  tar^x  ItofM 

eentr  £mcet  oafla  udite. 


Ti      0     E     V     E     R     U 
artTh  ats'bu  tanEx  ItofM  ortal  itieT  hisaR 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

To  thememorie  ofM.fr.Sha^^Jpeareo 

y^J^^EEwondred  (Shakc-fpeare)  that  thou  we?it*Jtfofoone 

From  the  JTorlds^Sta^ejCo  theGraues-Tfring-roomz, 
Wee  thought  thee  deady  hut  this  thy  printed  H^orth^ 
Tels  thy  Speflatorsythat  thou  went  ft  hut  forth 
To  enter  with  appkufe.    An  ABors  Art, 
(an  dye,  and  line, to aBe  cfecondpart. 
That's  hut  an  ExiC  of  Mortal!  tie ; 
This,  a  %e'entra7ice  to  a  Tlaudlte. 

I     Me 

ALPHABET  OF  ENLARGED  ITALIC  AND  ROMAN  LETTERS  IN  THE  "  I.  M.  POEM." 
WITH  ADDITIONAL  LETTERS  FROM  FIRST  FOLIO  NECESSARY  TO  COMPLETE 
GERMAN  WORDS  CONCEALED  IN  IT:— 

A         B  A         BABAB 

A  J  a  a  h  h  ^  p 
CC  h  b  i  i  r  r 
EE     c  c  K  sffs 

i^E    ^  d  I  I  t  t 
xa(/-  ^  e  mm  u  u 

SsSSSgZ  0  oy 


538 


CIPHERS 


r  T  ||i  i  p 


This  example  should  satisfy  one  whatever  his  preconceived 
opinion  may  be,  that  the  claim  of  those  who  have  studied 
Bacon's  biliteral  cipher  that  he  made  use  of  it,  is  not  unreason- 
able. So  much  has  been  attempted  to  controvert  this  claim, 
that  our  success  in  the  test  given  impelled  us  to  go  farther  in 
testing  the  validity  of  this  particular  cipher,  especially  as 
many  Baconians  still  decline  to  admit  it  to  discussion;  only, 
however,  by  discarding  several  valuable  additions  to  Baconian 
literature  which  they  have  adopted,  can  they  be  quite  consist- 
ent. As  already  stated  we  do  not  wonder  that  so  many  are 
skeptical  regarding  the  existence  of  ciphers  in  works  ascribed 
to  Bacon,  because  of  the  difficulties  which  present  themselves 
to  every  one  who  attempts  to  study  them,  but  we  believe  that 
any  one  with  good  eyes  and  an  ambition  to  master  these  dif- 
ficulties can  do  so  by  persistent  labor,  as  much  labor,  for  in- 
stance, as  would  be  required  in  mastering  a  difficult  foreign 
tongue. 

A   CIPHER  IN   THE    SECOND   FOLIO 

To  test  the  validity  of  a  cipher  in  the  Second  Folio  we  offer 
a  more  lengthy  experiment;  and,  first  present  an  enlarged 
alphabet  of  the  two  fonts,  found  in  the  adulatory  poem  of 
Leonard  Digges ;  and  taking  Sonnets  xxxii,  xxxvi,  xxxviii, 

S39 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

A       B           A        B  A       B  A        B 

©S  nn  b  h  n  n 

cc 0 0  yj  II 

F  F  s  S  h  u  t   t 

G  GTT  a  «  « 

HHFV  kk  l? 


540 


XXXI  I. 

jf  thou  suY<vi<ve  niy  ipell contented  day. 
When  that  churl  death  my  bones  Vtih  dust  shall  coV^r 
^nd  shalt  by  fortune  once  more  resurrveyz 
These  poor  rude  lines  of  thy  deceased  LoVeri 
Qompdre  them  with  the  hetteringofthe  time, 
^nd  thou^i  they  heoutstript  by  every  pen, 
^ser<ve  them  for  my  loVe,  not  for  their  rhyme, 
Exceeded  hy  the  hex^n  of  happier  men. 
Oh  then  Vouchsafe  me  but  this  loving  thou^H, 
Had  my  friends  Muse  grolvn  Vith  this  groVtng  age, 
A  dedrer  birth  than  this  his  loye  had  hrou^H 
To  march  in  ranks  of  better  equipage: 
^ut  since  he  died  andToets  better pro^e. 
Theirs  for  their  style  VUreadJitsfor  his  lo^e. 

XXXYI. 

Let  me  confess  that  we  two  must  he  f^ain. 
Although  our  undivided  loVes  are  one: 
So  shall  thoseUots  that  do^ith  me  remain. 
Without  thy  help,  by  me  be  home  alone. 
Jn  our  two  lo'Ves  there  is  hut  one  respect. 
Though  in ourliVes  a  separable  spite. 
Which  though  it  alter  not  l6Ve's  sole  effect. 
Yet  doth  it  steal  sweethoursfrom  lo^e^s  delight. 
J  may  not  evermore  acknoMedge  thee. 
Lest  my  be-^  ailed  guilt  should  do  thee  shame, 
T^r  thou^ith  public  kindnefs  honour  me, 
Vnlepthou  take  that  honour  from  thy  name  z 
Sut  do  not  so ;  /  loye  theein  such  sort^ 
As  thou  loeing  mlne^  mine  is  thy  good  report. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

XXXYIIL 

Ho'^  can  mjMuse'^ant  suhiect  to  Indent, 
Wlnlethou  dost  hreathe,  that  pour's t  Into  my  "Verse 
Thine  o^n  s^eet  argument,  too  excellent 
For  eyeryvulgar  paper  to  rehearser 
0,  ghe  thyself  the  thanks,  if  aught  inmt 
Worthy  perusal  stand  against  thy  sight; 
for'i^^ho's  50  dumb  that  cannot  write  to  thee, 
When  thou  thyself  dost  gi'Ve  invention  light? 
Se  thou  the  tenth  Muse,  ten  times  morein'^orth 
Than  those  old  nine'^hich  rhymers  in^ocate; 
jfnd  he  that  calls  on  thee,  let  him  bring  forth 
Eternal  numbers  to  outUnje  long  date. 

jfmy  slight  Muse  do  please  these  curious  days-. 
The  pain  he  mine,  but  thine  shall  be  the  praise. 

Yet  he  seems  to  set  the  greatest  store  by  his't'ork^ 

and  following  Bacon's  directions,  we  enfolded  in  them  a  poem 
of  our  own,  adding  a  prose  line  to  contain  the  signature,  which 
was  then  photographed  down  to  the  proper  size  so  as  to  show 
a  facsimile  of  the  sonnets  enfolding  the  poem  in  the  bi-formed 
alphabet  given  on  page  540.  This  we  mailed  to  Mrs.  Gal- 
lup, which  reached  her  two  days  later,  and  was  returned  to  us 
by  next  mail  with  the  poem  correctly  transcribed  without  a 
single  error.  The  title  was  "The  Library,"  but  we  left  it  out 
to  avoid  furnishing  the  decipherer  with  a  clue  to  the  subject 
of  the  poem. 

Sonnet  XXXIL  and  part  of  XXXVL,  containing  first 
stanza  of  poem  by  author  as  marked  by  Mrs.  Gallup 
using  letters  from  poem  of  Digges  in  second  Folio  (page 
540). 

S42 


T  H  0  U  G  H  T 

If tho  usury   iv^m^  wellc   onten  tedda  vWhen 

0  M  *     ""b  S  T  H  E 
tlsatc  hurla  eatlun  jrbone   swith  dusts  hallc 

D  U  S  T  "'      0  "^  ]?  M 

overA  ndsha  Itbyf  or tun  eonce  merer  e^urv 

E  H  0       ""P  GEN 

dyThe   sepoo  rrude   lines   of  thy  deo^ea   sedLo 

1  U  G  C    ~'        L  A  T 
verCo  spare  theinw  ithth  e]^e;^t  ering  of  the 

M  T  H  E  Y  S  T 

tlmeA  ndtho  ughth  eyheo  utstr  iptbjr  17^17 

I  L  L  S  U  R  V 

penKe   se^rve   themf  £niiyl  oveno  tf  ort  heirr 

I         ""v  E  I  M  MO 

hjmee  xceed  edbyt  hehei   ghtof  happi  erraen 

R  T  A  Ii  I  Z  E 

Ohthe  nvouc  hsafe  melDut   thisl  oving  thoug 

D,   ,       B,    ,       Y^  E  A  M  E 

htnad  myf ri^  endsm  use^gr  ownwi  ththi  sgrow 

IT  E         R  E  7^  IT 

in gag  eAdea  rerbi  rthth  anthi   ehisl  oyeha 

H  T  H  E  M  T  H 

dbrou  ^vlp  inarch  inran  k§6fb  etter  equip 

age/^u  tsinc  ehedi  eoand  Poets  hette,  rprov 

„    R       0^  L         J)  C  0  M 

eThei  rsfor  their  style  illre  adhis  forhi 

,M,u'n  I  0  N  S 

glpye  Let  me  confe  ss^tha  twetw  omust  betwa 

T  I  L  L  A        'n      '    D 

i_nAlt  hough  ourun  diyi^d  edlov  esare   oneSo 

0  E  T  H  E  I  R 

shall  th£3£  i.lot^fl   thatd  owi^th  me  rem  ainWi 

w""      I  S  D  6  ME 

thout  thyhe  Ipbym  ebe>)£  meal  onein  ourtw 

R  E  E  L  Y  D  R 

o^ltjve   sther  ei£bu  toner  espec  tThou  jghino 

I  N  K  T  H  Y  E 

urliv  esase  parab  les2.i   teWhi  chtho  ughit 

ill"" 

alter  notlo  vesso. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

This  is  the  entire  poem  enfolded,  to  test  the  decipherer's 
skill,  which  was  marked  as  shown  in  above  partial  exhibit. 

Though  tombs  the  dust  of  men  of  Genius  claim, 
They  still  survive  immortalized  by  Fame; 
Here  with  them  thou  mayst  hold  communion  still, 
And  of  their  Wisdom  freely  drink  thy  fill. 

But  what  is  learned  that  must  thou  wisely  do  . 
If  thou  wouldst  reap,  for  this  is  ever  true, 
Who  learns  and  learns  but  does  not  what  he  knows 
Is  one  who  plows  and  plows  but  never  sows. 

James  P.  Baxter. 

These  examples,  one  from  each  Folio,  ought  to  be  worthy  of 
the  attention  even  of  Stratfordians. 

Of  course,  when  the  statement  was  made  that  a  cipher 
existed  in  the  "Shakespeare"  plays,  as  well  as  in  Bacon's 
philosophical  works,  and,  especially,  the  claim  to  a  more 
extended  authorship,  there  was  a  storm  of  protest,  which  for 
a  time  drowned  all  attempts  to  obtain  a  hearing.  "Mrs. 
Gallup  was  a  fraud,  and  the  cipher  story  an  invention."  She 
had  "falsified  history,"  and  translations  of  the  "Odyssey" 
and  "Iliad,"  purporting  to  have  been  found  in  "Edward  II," 
"Anatomy  of  Melancholy,"  and  "De  Augmentis,"  showed 
that  she  had  "cribbed  from  other  translators,  especially 
Pope."  But  if  she  was  an  impostor,  would  she  have  been  so 
unwise  as  to  make  her  thesis  so  preposterous  at  the  outset  as 
to  render  it  impossible  of  acceptance  ? 

These  translations  purported  to  be  found  in  cipher  in  works 
which  the  literary  world  believed  belonged  to  three  different 
authors.  Granted  that  Bacon  might  put  cipher  stories  in  his 
own  books,  how  could  he  do  so  in  the  books  of  others  ?  No 
wonder  the  claim  was  regarded  as  nonsensical.  The  over- 
enthusiasm  of  these  critics  led  them  to  hasty  conclusions  and 
mortifying  confutations. 

It  is  certain  that  one  of  the  most  remarkable  disclosures  of 
the  cipher  is  the  English  translation  of  the  "Odyssey"  and 
"Iliad"  of  Homer;  the  "Eclogues"  of  Virgil  and  other  poems, 

S44 


CIPHERS 

the  declared  product  of  Bacon's  youthful  brain,  which  the  de- 
cipherer says  she  was  surprised  and  disturbed  at  finding  in 
her  way  when  tracing  the  story  of  Bacon's  life.  To  give  an 
adequate  idea  of  these  remarkable  translations  would  require 
a  volume,  hence  we  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  few  brief 
excerpts  from  the  "Iliad." 
Incited  by  Minerva,  Pandarus  wounds  Menelaus:  — 

She  sought  brave  Pandarus  amidst  the  band 
That  foUow'd  him  from  the  ^sepus'  streams; 
And,  standing  near  him,  spake  in  winged  words: 

"  Wouldst  thou  now  Pandarus,  Lycaon's  son, 
Lend  ear  unto  the  counsels  that  I  give. 
No  longer  would  thy  bow,  its  strong  cord  slack, 
Hang  idly.   Thou  a  bitter  shaft  wouldst  aim 
At  Menelaus,  winning  endless  fame. 
And  thanks  and  favor,  —  golden  gifts  as  rare 
As  prince  or  king  can  offer  unto  one 
Whom  he  delights  to  honor,  —  for  indeed 
All  Trojans  would  rejoice,  could  they  behold 
Brave  Menelaus  laid  upon  the  pyle. 
Slain  by  an  arrow  from  thy  mighty  bow. 
Especially  shall  Paris'  heart  be  glad; 
No  limit  shall  there  be  to  gratitude. 
Nor  to  the  treasure  in  rich  store  for  thee. 
Come  now,  I  pray  thee,  send  thy  mighty  shaft 
Into  their  midst,  and  vow  unto  Apollo 
A  splendid  hecatomb  of  firstling  lambs." 

So  saying,  his  unthinking  mind  she  won. 
In  haste,  straightway,  his  polished  bow  he  took, 
That  from  the  wild  goat's  branching  horns  was  fashioned. 
Once  from  the  ambush  on  a  mountain  side. 
Lying  in  wait,  he  saw  that  noble  pair 
Proudly  uplifted,  and  the  bounding  goat 
Emerged  to  the  light.   There  clear  he  saw  it 
Against  the  cavern's  mouth,  and  taking  aim, 
His  winged  shaft  that  square  white  breast  did  pierce, 
And  on  the  rocks  supine  the  creature  lay. 
These  horns,  polished  and  golden  tipped,  became 
The  bow  Lycaon's  son,  most  masterful, 
Did  bend.  The  point  he  rested  on  the  ground. 
And  from  his  quiver  taking  oif  the  cap. 
Fitted  an  arrow's  notch  unto  the  cord. 
While,  round  about  him,  shields  were  closely  ranked, 

545 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

By  his  companions,  lest  the  watchful  Greeks 
Espying  him  should  take  away  his  life, 
Ere  martial  Menelaus  should  be  slain,  — 
The  leader  brave  of  all  the  Grecian  hosts. 

So  Pandarus  drew  back  the  tough  hide  string 
Until  his  head  did  rest  against  his  breast, 
While  the  shaft's  barb  nigh  to  the  bow  was  brought 
A  moment,  ere  the  impatient  arrow  sped 
In  swift  flight  thro'  the  camp,  on  deadly  quest. 

Ah!  Menelaus,  then  thy  hour  had  come. 
Had  not  blue-orbed  Pallas  at  thy  side 
Repelled  that  shaft.   Even  as  a  watchful  mother 
Would  brush  a  fly  from  her  fair,  sleeping  child, 
Minerva's  hand  the  sharp  point  turned  aside, 
And  firm  infixed  in  his  girdle's  clasp. 
Its  course  thus  silently  and  swiftly  stayed. 
That  wicked  arrow  little  harm  might  work. 
Yet  did  its  point  break  through  the  tender  skin; 
And  the  white  columns  of  those  ivory  thighs. 
The  sturdy  knees,  and  the  fair  feet  below, 
Were  bathed  in  blood,  black  as  the  sacred  Styx. 
Then  began  that  heroes  heart  to  quail  with  fear; 
But,  looking  down,  the  cord  outside  he  saw, 
And  once  more  gathered  courage  in  his  breast. 

Meanwhile,  across  the  plain,  the  Trojan  hosts 
In  warlike  guise  advancing,  might  be  seen. 
Then  would  you  not  surprise  brave  Agamemnon, 
Nor  see  him  hesitate  nor  shun  the  fight; 
But  hastening  forth,  he  bad  Eurymedon, 
The  son  of  Ptolymaeus,  to  be  nigh 
With  steeds  and  chariot  against  a  time 
That,  wearied  with  the  labors  of  the  field, 
He  might  gain  respite.  Many  hurried  on; 
To  these  he  spake  swift  words  of  cheer,  thus  saying: 

"Argives!  remit  not  any  of  your  ardor. 
For  Jove  will  not  of  falseness  be  the  abettor; 
The  flesh  of  all  false  Trojans  shall  be  food 
To  cormorants.  Ay,  and  their  wives  and  children 
(Since  they  this  solemn  league  did  violate. 
And  first  did  offer  injury),  for  this. 
Shall  hence  within  our  sable  ships  be  borne, 
As  we  return  to  our  dear  native  land 
Triumphant  conquerors.  Then  shall  fair  Troy, 
And  all  that  mighty  band,  lie  low  in  the  dust." 


CIPHERS 

Like  wintry  mountain  torrent  roaring  loud 
That  frights  the  shepherd,  in  the  deep  ravine 
Mixing  the  floods  tumultuously  that  pour 
From  forth  an  hundred  gushing  springs  at  once, 
Thus  did  the  deafening  battle  din  arise, 
When  meeting  in  one  place  with  direful  force. 
In  tumult  and  alarms,  the  armies  joined. 
Then  might  of  warrior  met  an  equal  might; 
Shields  clashed  on  shields,  the  brazen  spear  on  spear. 
While  dying  groans  mixed  with  the  battle  cry 
In  awesome  sound;  and  steeds  were  fetlock  deep 
In  blood,  fast  flowing,  as  the  armies  met. 

The  translations  from  Homer  especially  drew  the  fire  of 
critics.  What  appeared  to  be  at  first  sight  the  most  serious 
charge,  cribbing,  Mrs.  Gallup  promptly  met.  We  will  briefly 
quote  from  her  reply  to  Marston's  attack  in  the  ''Nineteenth 
Century":  — 

Any  statement  that  I  copied  from  Pope,  or  from  any  source 
whatever,  the  matter  put  forth  as  deciphered  from  Bacon's 
works,  is  false  in  every  particular.  .  .  .  Knowing  that  Pope's  was 
considered  the  least  correct  of  several  of  the  English  translations, 
yet,  perhaps,  the  best  known  for  its  poetic  grace,  it  is  hardly 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  I  should  have  copied  his,  had  I  been 
dependent  upon  any  translation  for  the  deciphered  matter.  Ba- 
con says  his  earliest  work  upon  the  Iliad  was  done  under  instruc- 
tors. There  were  Latin  translations  extant  in  his  day,  which 
were  equally  accessible  to  Pope  a  century  later.  A  similarity 
might  have  arisen  from  a  study  by  both  of  the  same  Latin  text. 

Any  one  who  reads  and  compares  Bacon's  translations  with 
Ogilby's  and  Pope's,  as  the  present  writer  has  done,  will  be 
fully  convinced  that  the  decipherer  was  not  their  author.  If 
they  were  youthful  work,  they  must  have  been  written  before 
Bacon  went  to  France  in  1576,  and  were  in  manuscript  near 
forty  years  before  being  put  into  cipher.  There  is  no  reason 
why  Ogilby,  who  not  far  from  this  time  was  about  Gray's 
Inn,  may  not  have  seen  them  before  making  his  transla- 
tion. We  find  that  Pope  was  familiar  with  Ogilby.  Says 
Spence:  "The  perusal  of  Ogilby's  Homer  and  of  Sandy's  Ovid 

547 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

filled  him  with  delight."  ^  His  "Iliad"  in  manuscript  is  still 
preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  and  is  interesting  as  showing 
variations  from  the  printed  work.  From  Lord  Bolingbroke  it 
passed  to  Mallet  who  bequeathed  it  to  the  Museum.  We  find 
Pope  thus  describing  his  method  of  working  which  is  illuminat- 
ing:— 

In  translating  both  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  my  usual 
method  was  to  take  advantage  of  the  first  heat;  and  then  to  cor- 
rect each  book,  first  by  the  original  text,  then  by  other  transla- 
tions; and  lastly  to  give  it  a  reading  for  the  versification  only.^ 

This  seems  to  have  been  overlooked  by  Marston  and  other 
critics,  and  we  call  attention  to  it  in  support  of  the  decipherer's 
contention. 

So  eager  were  Mrs.  Gallup's  critics  to  discredit  her  that  they 
wrote  much  of  which  doubtless  they  are  now  ashamed.  This 
we  will  pass,  and  speak  only  of  some  of  the  indictments  urged 
against  her,  a  prominent  one  being  the  use  in  the  deciphered 
writings  of  "Americanisms"  unknown  in  Bacon's  day,  for- 
getting that  many  so-called  Americanisms  were  everyday 
English  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Bacon  never  could  have 
written  "  Brittain,"  nor  "  Ended  now  is  my  great  desire  to  sit 
in  the  British  throne ;  nor  honor  for  honour."  Of  course  the 
critic  showed  his  gross  ignorance  of  Bacon's  philosophical 
works,  as  well  as  of  the  dramas,  for  Bacon  did  write  "  Brit- 
taine"  in  the  "Advancement  of  Learning,"  and  he  often  used 
the  phrase  "in"  instead  of  "on"  the  throne;  in  fact,  this 
peculiar  use  of  the  word  by  Bacon,  and  its  frequent  appear- 
ance in  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  is  extremely  significant. 
Bacon  also  used  "honor,"  and  in  the  plays  it  often  occurs. 

Lee,  as  usual,  settles  the  question  of  the  biliteral  cipher,  if 
positive  declaration  is  suflftcient  to  settle  it.  He  declares  that 
he  has  collected  twenty-five  copies  of  the  Folio,  and  "no 

^  Joseph  Spence,  Anecdotes,  Observations,  etc.,  p.  270.   London,  1820. 
*  Rev.  Alexander  Dyce,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Alexander  Pope,  vol.  i,  p.  xli. 
Boston,  1853. 

548 


CIPHERS 

cipher  exists  in  it";  and  of  the  use  in  books  of  different  fonts 
of  type,  "Nothing  is  more  frequent  than  such  mixtures  in 
books."  This  last  statement  is  too  well  known  to  mention.  If 
the  use  of  several  fonts  of  type  had  not  been  common  in 
Bacon's  time,  he  would  never  have  ventured  to  use  his  biliteral 
cipher.  If  Lee  had  soberly  examined  the  subject,  he  would 
have  seen  that  it  was  not  a  question  of  the  use  of  different 
fonts  of  type  which  was  involved,  but  the  method  of  such  use, 
and  so  would  have  avoided  his  irrelevant  declaration. 

The  numerous  verbal  criticisms  exploited  by  correspondents 
of  publications  considered  authoritative,  are  remarkable  for 
their  display  of  ignorance.  Mrs.  Gallup  has  answered  many 
of  them,  and  were  it  worth  while  it  could  be  easily  shown  that 
hardly  a  verbal  criticism  thus  far  adduced  possesses  validity. 
The  only  effect  which  they  can  have  is  to  strengthen  the 
Baconian  argument.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  historical 
criticisms  of  Mr.  Rait  in  the  "Fortnightly  Review."  He 
says :  — 

No  reader  of  Mr.  Froude  can  forget  this  brilliant,  if  somewhat 
brutal,  description  of  the  scene  at  Fotheringay  Castle,  or  his  pic- 
ture of  the  doomed  Queen  standing  "on  the  black  scaffold  with 
the  black  figures  ail  around  her,  blood-red  from  head  to  foot." 
Mr.  Froude  had  some  authority  for  his  phrase;  one  contempo- 
rary writer  does  remark  that  she  was  executed  "tout  en  rouge." 
But  the  majority  of  contemporary  accounts  go  to  show  that  her 
costume,  after  she  had  disrobed  for  the  block,  consisted  of  brown 
velvet  and  black  satin,  and  their  statement  is  confirmed  by  the 
contemporary  picture,  painted  to  commemorate  the  Queen's 
death.  We  must  therefore  grant  the  "tout  en  rouge,"  though 
Bacon  could  scarcely  have  seen  the  manuscript  of  the  French- 
man who  wrote  it;  but  the  picturesque  "blood-red"  bears  the 
unmistakable  mark  of  Mr.  Froude,  and  when  the  cipher  tells  us 
that  Mary  "stood  up  in  a  robe  of  blood-red,"  we  can  only  con- 
clude that  Francis  Bacon  was  the  real  author  of  a  "History  of 
England  from  the  Death  of  Wolsey  to  the  Defeat  of  the  Spanish 
Armada,"  hitherto  attributed  to  James  Anthony  Froude.  Any 
remaining  doubt  on  this  point  will  be  removed  when  the  reader 
finds,  on  page  312,  the  words  "our  colonies  in  all  the  regions  of 

549 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  globe,  from  remote  East  to  a  remoter  West."  It  is  as  likely 
that  Bacon  wrote  Pope's  Homer  and  Froude's  History  as  that 
he  penned  these  words  in  the  reign  of  King  James  I.  For  where 
were  the  colonies? 

Yet  Lingard,  the  Catholic  historian,  who  would  have  been 
only  too  glad  to  differ  with  Froude,  with  whom  he  was  at  odds, 
and  delighted  to  expose  a  flaw  in  his  work,  says :  — 

She  wore  a  mantle  of  black  printed  satin,  lined  with  black 
taifeta,  and  faced  with  sable,  with  a  long  train,  and  sleeves  hang- 
ing to  the  ground.  Her  purpoint  was  of  black  figured  satin,  and 
under  it  a  bodice,  unlaced  at  the  back,  of  crimson  satin,  with  the 
skirt  of  crimson  velvet.^ 

In  this  he  is  supported  by  the  most  reliable  contemporary 
accounts. 

Mr.  Rait  takes  up  the  story  of  the  ring,  an  engraving  and 
pedigree  of  which  we  shall  produce,  and  dismisses  as  a  romance 
this  oft-repeated  tradition  which  is  quite  as  well  authenticated 
as  most  of  the  history  we  possess. 

The  word  "curricula,''  applied  to  courses  of  study,  greatly 
amuses  him.  Bacon  never  used  this  modern  word;  "it  could 
only  mean  race-courses"  in  his  day.  Again  Mr.  Rait  makes  a 
hasty  conclusion.  We  find  this  word  applied  to  courses  of 
study  in  Scotland  certainly  before  1633,  and  Bacon,  who  was 
deeply  interested  in  applying  words  to  new  uses,  would  have 
known  this.^  Perhaps  Mr.  Rait  would  not  admit  that  he 
might  be  the  author  of  its  application  to  courses  of  study. 

Mr.  Rait's  crowning  discovery,  which  is  intended  to  give 
the  coup  de  grace  to  the  Baconian  heresy,  is  the  study  of 
Davison's  connection  with  the  execution  of  the  Queen  of 
Scots.  The  account  says,  what  is  unquestioned,  that  "th' 
haplesse  prisoner  must  needs  chuse  from  the  counsell  of  hpv 
foe  to  obtaine  any  defender."  Then  took  place  the  interview 
between  Burleigh  and  Leicester 

^  Lingard,  History  of  England^  vol.  vi,  p.  466. 
'  Munimenta,  University  of  Glasgow,  in,  379. 

SSO 


CIPHERS 

to  which  was  summoned  the  Queen^s  Secretary  who  was  so 
threaten'd  by  his  lordship  —  on  paine  of  death,  et  cetera,  —  that 
hee  sign'd  for  the  Queen,  and  affixed  th'  great  seale  to  the  dread- 
ful death-warrant.  The 'life  of  the  Secretarie  was  forfeit  to  the 
deede  when  Her  Majesty  became  aware  that  so  daring  a  crime 
had  become  committed,  but  who  shall  say  that  the  blow  fell  upon 
the  guilty  head;  for,  truth  to  say,  Davison  was  only  a  feeble  in- 
strument in  their  hands,  and  life  seem'd  to  hang  in  th'  ballance, 
therefore  blame  doth  fall  on  those  men,  great  and  noble  though 
they  be,  who  led  him  to  his  death.  ^ 

The  life  of  Davison  certainly  shows  that  he  lived  twenty- 
one  years  after  Mary's  death,  and  died  peacefully  in  his  bed. 
A  critical  examination,  however,  of  the  cipher  story  does  not 
conflict  with  this.  A  correction  of  a  slight  error,  a  change  of 
"his"  for  "her"  before  the  last  word,  so  as  to  read  "her 
death"  sets  the  matter  right. 

By  law  the  life  of  Davison  "was  forfeit"  in  legal  parlance, 
and  the  life  of  not  only  Mary  "seemed"  but  did  "hang  in  the 
ballance,"  which  minimized  his  responsibility,  as  he  knew  that 
Elizabeth,  Burleigh,  and  Leicester  were  determined  upon  her 
execution,  and  guilty  in  leading  "him  to  her  death." 

The  fleer  at  the  mention  of  English  colonies  East  and  West 
in  the  reign  of  James  seems  unfortunate.  The  strenuous  efforts 
of  the  English  to  obtain  a  foothold  in  the  East  began  early. 
The  East  India  Company  was  chartered  by  Elizabeth  in  1600, 
and  the  establishments  of  "factories"  or  trading  posts  which 
resulted  in  the  domination  of  India  began  at  once.  Lancaster 
set  up  a  "House  of  Trade"  at  Bantam  in  1603.  In  1607  the 
English  "settled  agencies"  in  Siam,  and  in  161 2  captured 
Swalley  in  Surat,  and,  holding  it,  established  trade  with  set- 
tlements in  the  Persian  Gulf. 

Previous  to  16 19  the  English  had  established  commercial 
posts  in  Japan,  on  the  island  of  Amboyna,  at  Mocha,  and  other 
Eastern  points,  and  in  1619  "exercised  sovereignity"  in  the 
island  of  Great  Banda,  with  thirty  officials  and  a  military 

^  Biliteral  Cipher,  etc.,  p.  165. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

establishment  of  two  hundred  and  fifty.  In  the  West  the 
Bahamas  were  annexed  to  England  in  1578,  Raleigh  settled 
his  colony  at  Roanoke  in  1587.  Barbados  was  "annexed"  to 
England  in  1605,  and  colonized  in  1625.  The  colony  of  James- 
town, Virginia,  was  established  in  1607,  the  Popham  Colony 
at  Sagadahoc  in  Maine  the  same  year,  and  the  Plymouth 
Colony  in  1620.  No  doubt  Englishmen  of  Bacon's  time  com- 
placently regarded  all  these  ventures  East  and  West,  as  the 
beginnings  of  English  colonial  power,  as  they  proved  to  be, 
and  to  speak  of  them  as  such  should  hardly  subject  Bacon  to 
animadversion.  It  should  be  remembered  that  he  was  a  friend 
of  Southampton  and  Pembroke,^  members  of  the  Virginia 
Company,  and  in  1610  was  a  patentee  in  a  colonial  project  in 
Newfoundland ;  so  that  he  must  have  been  familiar  with  the 
colonial  ventures  of  his  time.^ 

Evidently  Rait,  when  he  wrote  his  criticism  of  Mrs.  Gallup, 
believed  that  she  invented  the  allusion  to  colonies,  or  he  would 
not  with  happy  confidence  have  declared:  "We  have  surely 
heard  the  last  of  the  biliteral  cipher."  More  marvelous,  indeed, 
than  the  abused  cipher  is  the  fact  that  men  like  Marston,  Rait, 
Lang,  Lee,  Robertson,  and  their  confreres  should  venture  to 
deal  with  historical  questions  in  this  amorphous  manner. 

Mrs.  Gallup,  speaking  of  the  philosophical  works  of  Bacon, 
tells  us  that  the  biliteral  cipher 

is  found  in  the  Italic  letters  that  appear  in  such  unusual  and  un- 
explained prodigality  in  the  original  editions  of  Bacon's  works. 
Students  of  these  old  editions  have  been  impressed  with  the  ex- 
traordinary number  of  words  and  passages,  often  non-important, 
printed  in  Italics,  where  no  known  rule  of  construction  would 
require  their  use.  There  has  been  no  reasonable  explanation  of 
this  until  now  it  is  found  that  they  were  so  used  for  the  purposes 
of  the  cipher.  These  letters  are  seen  to  be  in  two  forms  —  two 
fonts  of  type  —  with  marked  differences.    In  the  capitals  these 

*  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  the  "W.H.,"  as  most  Stratfordians 
fancy,  who  was  the  begetter  of  the  Sonnets. 

*  H.  J.  Robinson,  Colonial  Chronology.  London,  1892.  Cf.  Hakluyt,  Voyages 
oj  the  English  Nation.  Hazard's  State  Papers. 

552 


CIPHERS 

are  easily  discerned,  but  the  distinguishing  features  in  the  small 
letters,  from  age  of  the  books,  blots,  and  poor  printing,  have  been 
more  difficult  to  classify,  and  close  examination  and  study  have 
been  required  to  separate  and  sketch  out  the  variations,  and  edu- 
cate the  eye  to  distinguish  them.  From  the  disclosures  found  in 
all  these,  it  is  evident  that  Bacon  expected  this  Biliteral  cipher 
would  be  the  first  to  be  discovered.  .   .   . 

The  plays  of  Shakespeare  lose  nothing  of  their  dramatic  power 
of  wondrous  beauty,  nor  deserve  the  less  admiration  of  the  scholar 
and  critic,  because  inconsistencies  are  removed  in  the  knowledge 
that  they  came  from  the  brain  of  the  greatest  student  and  writer 
of  that  age,  and  were  not  a  "flash  of  genius"  descended  upon 
one  of  peasant  birth,  less  noble  history,  and  of  no  preparatory 
literary  attainments.  ... 

The  remarkable  similarity  in  the  dramatic  writings  attributed 
to  Greene,  Peele,  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare,  has  attracted 
much  attention,  and  the  biographers  of  each  have  claimed  that 
both  style  and  subject  matter  have  been  imitated,  if  not  appro- 
priated by  the  others.  The  practical  explanation  lies  in  the  fact 
that  one  hand  wrote  them  all.  .  .   . 

To  doubt  the  ultimate  acceptance  of  the  truths  brought  to  light 
would  be  to  distrust  that  destiny  in  which  Bacon  had  such  an 
abiding  faith  for  his  justification,  and  which,  in  fact,  after  three 
centuries,  has  lifted  the  veil,  and  brought  us  to  estimate  the 
character  and  accomplishments,  trials  and  sorrows  of  that  great 
genius,  with  a  feeling  of  nearness  and  personal  sympathy,  far 
greater  than  has  been  possible  from  the  partial  knowledge  which 
we  have  heretofore  enjoyed.^ 

Bacon  informs  us  in  the  cipher  that  he  and  Robert  Essex 
were  children  of  Elizabeth  and  Dudley,  who  were  married  se- 
cretly in  Lord  Pembroke's  house;  that  owing  to  the  Queen's 
pride  and  conceptions  of  state  policy,  the  marriage  was  kept 
secret,  but  being  discovered  by  him  he  was  sent  with  Paulet  to 
France,  and  there  acquired  an  affection  for  Marguerite  of 
Valois  which  lasted  him  through  life.  His  residence  at  the 
Court  of  France,  where  he  had  reveled  in  the  poetic  atmos- 
phere which  pervaded  it,  inspired  him  to  undertake  the  crea- 
tion of  a  similar  literature  for  his  own  country. 

^  The  Biliteral  Cipher,  etc.,  p.  4. 

SS3 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Spenser,  a  needy  clerk  of  Leicester,  and  several  others  in 
similar  circumstances,  were  not  averse  to  the  use  of  their 
names ;  hence  most  of  his  poetical  works  passed  as  Spenser's, 
and  his  dramatic  works  as  Greene's,  Marlowe's,  Peele's,  and 
Shakspere's,  all  actors,  while  he  made  an  early  venture  in 
philosophy  under  the  names  of  Bright  and  Burton.  There 
were  other  works  which  we  will  not  enumerate.  Dominated 
by  the  expectation  that  he  would  be  recognized  by  Elizabeth 
as  her  son,  but  obliged  to  conceal  the  secret  of  his  birth,  he 
labored  hopefully  in  his  beloved  profession  of  literature,  con- 
fiding his  dangerous  secret  only  to  his  cipher. 

THE   CIPHERS    IN    BACON's   WORKS 

We  will  make  a  few  extracts  taken  at  random  from  the 
translation  of  the  biliteral  cipher  made  by  Mrs.  Gallup  from 
the  "Shakespeare"  and  Philosophical  Works  of  Bacon,  mod- 
ernizing the  sixteenth-century  spelling,  in  which  the  transla- 
tion appears,  to  render  it  more  acceptable  to  modern  readers, 
realizing  at  the  outset  how  well-nigh  impossible  it  is  for  any 
one  living  in  an  age  like  ours  to  give  the  subject  a  patient  hear- 
ing; yet  convinced  that  by  so  doing  one  will  be  amply  repaid. 
Of  course,  well-settled  beliefs  may  be  disturbed,  and  preju- 
dices rudely  aroused,  but  upon  calm  reflection  it  will  be  found 
that  the  revelations  made  by  the  cipher  illumine  many  obscure 
passages  in  the  tortuous  labyrinths  of  sixteenth-century  his- 
tory, hitherto  meagerly  explored,  but  into  which  we  will  later 
make  a  brief  excursion. 

By  the  cipher  the  student  of  sixteenth-century  literature 
will  find  questions  which  have  confused  his  predecessors  made 
unmistakably  plain.  Let  us  listen  to  the  author  of  the  cipher. 

Directions  to  his  decipherer  ^ 

Take,  read!  it  is  sore  necessity  that  doth  force  me  to  this  very 
dry  and  also  quite  difficile  Cipher  as  a  way  or  method  of  trans- 
mission. .  .   .  My  stage  plays  have  all  been  disguised  (to  wit, 

^  YxomtYiQ  Advancement  of  L^arningj  1605. 

554 


CIPHERS 

many  in  Greene's  name  or  In  Peek's,  Marlowe's,  a  few,  such  as 
the  Queen's  Masques,  and  others  of  this  kind,  published  for  me 
by  Jonson,  my  friend  and  co-worker)  since  I  relate  a  secret  his- 
tory therein,  a  story  of  so  stern  and  tragic  quality,  It  illy  suited 
my  lighter  verse  in  the  earlier  works. 

It  surely  must  prove  that  they  are  the  work  of  my  hand  when 
you,  observing  this  variety  of  forms,  find  out  the  Cipher  so  de- 
vised to  aid  a  decipherer  In  the  study  of  the  interior  history.  By 
the  use  of  this  biliteral  Cipher,  or  the  highest  degree  of  Cipher 
writing,  I  may  give  not  merely  simple  rules  for  such  matters,  but 
also  some  hint  that  may  be  of  use,  or  an  example. 

And  then  these  words  of  encouragement,  vibrant  with  hope 

yet  with  a  suggestion  in  them  of  fear:  — 

It  is  fame  that  all  seek,  and  surely  so  great  renown  can  come 
in  no  other  study.  If,  therefore,  you  commence  the  study,  the 
laurel  must  at  some  future  day  be  bestowed  upon  you,  for  your 
interest  must  daily  grow,  and  none  could  win  you  away. 

From  "Twelfth  Night":  — 

My  keys  were  formed  before  one  of  my  plays  was  put  to- 
gether, and  all  was  very  well  planned.  Old  men  might  fail  to 
see  a  curious,  or  rather  a  peculiar  commingling  of  letters  in  the 
printed  pages  sent  out,  but  young  eyes  might  note  it,  therefore 
there  are  some  marks  employed  for  signs  to  my  decipherer  — 
yours  would  see  in  truth  more  quickly  —  and  so  no  evils  hap 
from  so  daring  an  experiment.  In  my  History  of  Henry  the 
Seventh,  this  is  explained.  Omit  Finis  Actus.  It  may  add  to  your 
confusion  in  the  beginning,  but  you  can  understand  my  other 
Cipher  must  have  occasionally  a  few  more  letters.  These  having 
been  used  In  your  former  ^  work,  as  you  remember,  will  have 
moved  Inquiry.  If  you  inquired  of  anyone  except  myself  how 
should  it  bring  a  reply  .^  This  is  for  yourself,  None  but  he  that 
holdeth  my  keys  should  make  attempt  to  make  Ciphers,  and 
one  who  hath  a  key  should  rest  not  till  he  hath  searched  out  all 
hidden  matters.  It  is  to  man's  glory  to  find  out  secrets.  The 
wise  have  the  fruit  of  much  labor  of  other  men,  and  do  more 
profit  thereby  than  they  themselves.  Thus  shall  you  reap  where 
we  have  sown  if  you  weary  not  before  nightfall. 

When  Henry  the  Seventh  is  joined  with  the  six  stage  plays 
first  set  forth  in  this  name,  that  Cipher,  we  now  would  fain  see 
wrought  out,  can  be  discovered. 

S55 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

The  Birth  Secret  ^ 

Whilst  my  mother,  the  Queen,  lay  prisoner  In  London  Tower 
she  wedded  the  Earl,  my  father  —  Robert  Dudley  —  and  he  that 
addresseth  you  In  these  various  Ciphers  was  born  a  prince  of  our 
mighty  country. 

Another  son  was  In  due  time  born,  whose  spirit  much  re- 
sembled, In  the  main  qualities,  that  of  our  mere,  but  who,  by  the 
wish  and  request  of  our  father  bore  his  christian  name,  Robert. 
He,  reared  by  Walter  Devereux,  bore  naturally  that  name,  after 
a  time  coming  into  the  titles  of  Earl  of  Essex  and  of  Ewe. 

The  desire  of  our  father,  who  remained  a  simple  Earl  although 
he  was  wedded  to  a  reigning  queen,  was  to  make  these  affairs  so 
well  understood  that  the  succession  should  be  without  question. 
To  our  mother  no  such  measure  was  pleasing.  By  no  argument, 
how  strong  soever,  might  this  concession  be  obtained,  and  after 
some  time  he  was  fain  to  appeal  the  case  for  us  directly  to  Parlia- 
ment to  procure  the  crown  to  be  entailed  upon  Elizabeth  and  the 
heirs  of  her  body.  He  handled  everything  with  greatest  measure, 
as  he  did  not  press  to  have  the  act  penned  by  way  of  any  declara- 
tion of  right,  also  avoiding  to  have  the  same  by  a  new  law  or  ordi- 
nance, but  choosing  a  course  between  the  two,  by  way  of  sure 
establishment,  under  covert  and  Indifferent  words,  that  the  In- 
heritance of  this  crown,  as  hath  been  mentioned  here,  rest,  remain 
and  abide  in  the  Queen,  and  as  for  limitation  of  the  entail,  he 
stopped  with  heirs  of  the  Queen's  body,  not  saying  the  right  heirs, 
thereby  leaving  It  to  the  law  to  decide,  so  as  the  entail  might 
rather  seem  a  favor  to  her — Elizabeth  —  and  to  their  children, 
than  as  Intended  disinheritance  to  the  House  of  Stuart.  It  was 
in  this  way  that  it  was  framed,  but  failed  in  effect  on  account 
of  the  ill-disposition  of  the  Queen  to  open  and  free  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  marriage.  But  none  could  convince  such  a  way- 
ward woman  of  the  wisdom  of  that  honorable  course.^ 

Disclosure  of  Bacon'' s  birth  ^ 

The  earliest  shows  of  favour  of  this  royal  mother,  as  patroness 
rather  than  parent,  were  seen  when  she  honored  our  roof  so  far 
as  to  become  the  guest  of  good  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon  —  that  kind 
man  we  supposed  to  be  our  father  then,  as  well  we  might,  for  his 

^  From  Bacon's  Parasceve. 

*  This  is  confirmed  in  a  quotation  from  Camden;  see  ante,  p.  ii. 

»  From  The  Mirror  of  Modesty ,  1584. 

556 


CIPHERS 

unchangeable  gentle  kindness,  his  constant  carefulness  for  our 
honor,  our  safety,  and  true  advancement.  These  became  marked, 
and  the  study  that  we  pursued  did  make  our  tongue  sharp  to 
reply  when  she  asked  us  a  perplexing  question,  never,  or  at  least 
seldom,  lacking  Greek  epigram  to  fit  those  she  quoted,  and  we 
were  often  brought  into  her  gracious  presence.  It  liveth,  as  do 
dreams  of  yesternight,  when  now  we  close  our  eyes,  the  stately 
movements,  grace  of  speech,  quick  smile,  and  sudden  anger,  that 
oft,  as  April  clouds  come  across  the  sun,  yet  as  suddenly  are 
withdrawn,  filled  us  with  succeeding  dismay,  or  brimmed  our 
cup  immediately  with  joy. 

It  doth  as  often  recur  that  the  Queen,  our  royal  mother,  some- 
times said  in  Sir  Nicholas'  ear  on  going  to  her  coach:  "Have  him 
well  instructed  in  knowledge  that  future  station  shall  make 
necessary."  Naturally  quick  of  hearing,  it  reaching  our  ears,  was 
caught  on  the  wing,  and  long  turned  and  pondered  upon,  but  we 
found  no  meaning,  for  all  our  wit,  no  whispered  word  having 
passed  the  lips  of  noble  Sir  Nicholas  on  the  matter. 

The  Disclosure 

We  were  in  presence  —  with  a  number  of  ladies,  and  several 
of  the  gentlemen  of  the  court,  when  a  silly  young  maiden  babbled 
a  tale,  Cecil,  knowing  her  weakness,  had  whispered  in  her  ear. 
A  dangerous  tidbit  it  was,  but  it  well  did  satisfy  the  malicious 
soul  of  a  tale-bearer  such  as  R.  Cecil,  that  concerned  not  her  as- 
sociate ladies  at  all,  but  the  honor,  the  honesty  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth. No  sooner  breathed  aloud  than  it  was  heard  by  the  Queen, 
no  more,  in  truth,  than  half  heard  then  it  was  avenged  by  the 
outraged  Queen. 

He  is  sent  abroad  ^ 

Elizabeth  had  rested  content  with  the  marriage  ceremony  per- 
formed in  the  Tower,  and  would  not  have  asked  for  regal,  or 
even  noble  pomp  —  with  attendants  and  witnesses;  nor  would 
she  have  wished  for  rhore  state,  because  being  quite  bent  upon 
secrecy,  she  with  no  want  of  justice  contended,  "The  fewer  eyes 
to  witness,  the  fewer  tongues  to  testify  to  that  which  had  been 
done." 

As  hath  been  said.  Earl  of  Leicester  then  foresaw  the  day  when 
he  might  require  the  power  this  might  grant  him,  and  no  doubt 
this  proved  true,  although  we,  the  first-born  son  of  the  secret 

^  From  the  Planetomachiat  1585. 

SS7 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

union,  have  profited  by  no  means  therefrom,  —  since  we  unfor- 
tunately incurred  his  great  and  most  rancourous  ill  will  many 
years  back.  As  you,  no  doubt,  are  cognisant  of  our  summary 
banishment  to  beautiful  France,  which  did  intend  our  correction, 
but  opened  to  us  the  gates  of  Paradise,  you  know  that  our  sire, 
more  even  than  our  royal  mother,  was  bent  upon  our  dispatch 
thither,  and  urged  vehemently  that  subsequent,  artfully  contrived 
business  —  concerning  affairs  of  state  —  intrusted  to  us  in  much 
the  same  manner,  we  thought,  as  weighty  affairs  were  laid  upon 
Sir  Amyas,  with  whom  they  sent  us  to  the  French  Court. 

By  some  strange  Providence,  this  served  well  the  purposes  of 
our  own  heart;  for,  making  cyphers  our  choice,  we  straightway 
proceeded  to  spend  our  greatest  labors  therein,  to  find  a  method 
of  secret  communication  of  our  history  to  others  outside  the 
realm. 

His  love  oj  Marguerite  of  Falois  ^ 

Bacon  often  refers  to  the  idyllic  story  of  his  love  of  Mar- 
guerite of  Valois — the  Daisy  of  the  Valley,  the  Rosalinde  of 
the  "Shepherd's  Calendar"  —  and  this  is  one  of  the  allu- 
sions :  — 

Since  the  former  issue  of  this  play,  very  seldom  heard  without 
most  stormy  weeping  —  your  poet's  commonest  plaudit  —  we 
have  all  but  determined  on  following  the  fortunes  of  these  ill- 
fated  lovers  by  a  path  less  thorny. 

Their  life  was  too  brief —  its  rose  of  pleasure  had  but  partly 
drunk  the  sweet  dew  of  early  delight,  and  every  hour  had  begun 
to  open  unto  sweet  love,  tender  leaflets,  in  whose  fragrance  was 
assurance  of  untold  joys  that  the  immortals  know.  Yet  it  is  a 
kind  fate  which  joined  them  together  in  life  and  in  death.  It  was 
a  sadder  fate  befel  our  youthful  love,  my  Marguerite,  yet  written 
out  in  the  plays  it  scarce  would  be  named  our  tragedy  since 
neither  yielded  up  life.  But  the  joy  of  life  ebbed  from  our  hearts 
with  our  parting,  and  it  never  came  again  into  this  bosom  in  full 
flood-tide.  O  we  were  Fortune's  fool  too  long,  sweet  one,  and 
art  is  long. 

This  stage-play  in  part  will  tell  our  brief  love  tale,  a  part  is  in  the 
play  previously  named  or  mentioned  as  having  therein  one  pretty 
scene,  acted  by  the  two.    So  rare  (and  most  brief)  the  hard  won 

*  ¥xom  Romeo  and  Juliet, 

SS8 


CIPHERS 

happiness,  it  afforded  us  great  content  to  relive  in  the  play  all 
that  as  mist  in  summer  morning  did  roll  away.  It  hath  place 
in  the  dramas  containing  a  scene  and  theme  of  this  nature,  since 
our  fond  love  interpreted  the  hearts  of  others,  and  in  this  joy, 
the  joy  of  heaven  was  faintly  guessed. 

We  will  now  pass  to  the  affair  of  Essex  deciphered  from  the 
Folio  of  the  "Spenser''  Works,  1611 :  — 

Two  parts  of  my  book,  which  I  set  before  my  last  works,  may 
be  placed  behind  every  other  as  you  arrange  the  whole  to  de- 
cipher your  instruction.  I  speak  of  Prosopo.  and  the  Fairy 
Queene,  but  the  other  parts  must  stand  thus,  as  here  you  find 
them.  Let  all  the  remainder  be  worked  first,  as  they  aid  in  the 
writing  of  my  brother's  history  which  was  begun  in  the  second 
part,  or  book,  that  doth  commence  one  of  my  great  ^  works  of 
Science,  and,  —  continued  in  the  little  work  styled  The  Wisdom 
of  the  Ancients,  and  taken  up  in  this  poetical  work  that  is  repub- 
lished for  this  purpose,  —  maketh  a  complete  abridgment  of  the 
history  given  fully  in  the  great  Cipher. 

As  hath  been  said,  many  important  papers  having  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  Earl,  many  features  of  their  plot  were  never 
brought  out,  E.  Essex  himself  saying,  "They  shall  be  put  where 
they  cannot  tell  tales."  But  evidence  was  sufficient  to  prove  the 
guilt  both  of  my  brother  and  Earl  of  Southampton.  Essex,  his 
plea,  that  he  was  not  present  at  the  consultation  that  five  trea- 
son-plotting noblemen  held  at  Drury-house,  aided  him  not  a 
whit,  for  his  associates  incriminated  him,  and  such  of  their  writ- 
ings as  had  not  been  destroyed  were  in  the  handwriting  of  my 
lord  of  Essex,  as  was  shown  at  the  trial,  and  they  were  acting  as 
he  directed. 

How  like  some  night's  horrible  vision  this  trial  and  awful  tor- 
ture before  his  execution  must  ever  be  to  me,  none  but  the  Judge 
that  sitteth  aloft  can  justly  know.  All  the  scenes  come  before  me 
like  the  acted  play,  but  how  to  put  it  away,  or  drive  it  back  to 
Avernus,  its  home,  O,  who  can  divulge  that  greatest  of  secrets.^ 
None. 

This  thought  only  is  fraught  with  a  measureless  pain,  that  all 
my  power  can  do  nought  for  his  memory.  If  he  had  but  heard 
my  advice,  but  he  heeded  his  own  unreasoning  wishes  only. 
Whilst  succeeding  barely  in  this  attempt  to  so  much  as  win  a 

^  That  is,  large. 

SS9 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

hearing,  yet  did  the  true  love  I  bore  so  move  me  that,  from  my 
care  of  Essex,  I  took  a  charge  that  greatly  imperiled  my  per- 
sonal pretensions,  as  I  did  occupy  my  utmost  wit,  and  even  ad- 
venture my  own  fortunes  with  the  Queen,  to  attempt  the  rein- 
tegration of  his.  .   .   . 

Vantages  acompted  great,  simply  as  the  uncertain  dreams  or 
visions  of  night  seem  to  us  in  after  time.  Ended  now  is  my  great 
desire  to  sit  in  British  throne.  Larger  work  doth  invite  my  hand 
then  majesty  doth  offer:  to  wield  the  pen  doth  ever  require  a 
greater  mind  then  to  sway  the  royal  scepter.  Ay,  I  cry  to  the 
Heavenly  Aid,  ruling  oer  all,  ever  to  keep  my  soul  thus  humbled 
and  content. 

From  Henry  FI,  Part  I 

Crowns  must  be  as  of  old,  night  and  daytime  well  attended, 
or  some  wild  rout,  waiting  in  ambush  Rapin's  black,  opportune 
time,  without  a  warning  steal  the  glory  of  the  land,  leaving 
behind  them  merely  desolation.  This  was  narrowly  averted  in 
England,  securely  as  her  crown  is  watched,  nor  did  these  empty 
headed  tools  do  ought  but  obey  a  superior  mind,  —  that  of  my 
brother  Essex.  The  rebels  might  do  his  bidding  merely  —  that 
was  the  limit  of  their  power  or  ability  —  and  he  alone  did  lay  his 
plan. 

Had  It  not  met  the  overturn  deserved,  the  younger  of  the 
sons  would  Inherit  ere  the  elder.  By  law  this  could  occur  only 
when  the  rightful,  or,  as  we  may  name  him  in  our  country,  heir- 
apparent,  hath  waived  his  rights.  ... 

Essex  nere  did  ought  in  a  spirit  of  revenge,  but  simply  that  he 
might  win  the  due  rewards  of  courage  or  of  valor,  if  this  doth  in 
any  manner  better  term  such  virtue.  His  nature  was  not  small, 
petty,  or  even  dwarfed  in  development.  It  was  larger  in  many 
directions  than  any,  who  now  censure  and  decry  him,  possess. 
Among  millions  a  voice  like  his  reached  our  listening,  most  atten- 
tive ears.  Wanting  that  sound,  no  other  is  sweet  and  this  silence 
is  a  pain. 

That  he  did  wrong  me  now  is  to  be  forgot,  and  wiped  from  the 
mind's  recollection  in  my  thoughts  of  the  evil  that  hath  come  to 
us  (chiefly  to  myself)  by  this  rebellion  of  the  Earl,  but  the  love 
and  tender  regard,  that  marked  all  our  first  sunny  young  days 
when  we  were  not  oft  to  be  found  out  of  harmony,  hath  sway. 
Those  hours  still  live  in  my  memory,  more  than  our  first  very 
open  and  sore  disputes. 

560 


CIPHERS 

The  Cipher  in  the  First  Folio  ^ 

Any  person  using  here  the  biliteral  Cipher,  will  find  a  rule  to 
be  followed  when  writing  the  hidden  letters  in  which  are  His- 
tories, Comedies,  Tragedies;  a  Pastoral  of  the  Christ;  Homer's 
epics  and  that  of  Virgil,  which  are  fully  rendered  in  English 
poetry;  the  completion  of  my  New  Atlantis;  Greene's  Life;  Story, 
of  Marlowe;  the  two  secret  epistles  (expressly  teaching  a  Cipher 
now  for  the  first  time  submitted  doubtfully  for  examination  and 
study  by  any  who  may  be  sufficiently  curious,  patient,  or  in- 
dustrious); part  of  Thyrsis  (Virgil's  Eclogues);  Bacchantes,  a 
Fantasie;  Queen  Elizabeth's  Life  (as  never  before  truly  pubHshed) : 
a  Life  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  my  owne. 

The  Greek  Poems  from  Titus  Andronicus :  — 

At  first  my  plan  of  Cipher  work  was  this :  to  show  secrets  that 
could  not  be  published  openly.  This  did  so  well  succeed  that 
a  diff'erent  (not  dangerous)  theme  was  entrusted  to  it;  and  after 
each  was  sent  out  a  new  desire  possessed  me,  nor  left  me  day  or 
night  until  I  took  up  again  the  work  I  love  so  fondly. 

Some  school  verses  went  into  one,  since  I  did  deem  them  good  — 
worthy  of  preservation  in  my  truly  precious  casket  studded  thick 
,with  hours  far  above  price.  Even  my  translations  of  Homer's 
two  immortal  poems,  as  well  as  many  more  of  less  value,  have 
a  place  in  my  Cipher,  and  the  two  our  most  worthy  Latin  singer 
left  in  his  language  I  have  translated  and  used  in  this  way  —  Vir- 
gil's Eneid  and  Eclogues.  Only  a  few  of  those  I  have  turned 
from  most  vigorous  Latin  were  put  out.  Most  of  the  translations, 
as  I  have  just  said,  appear  in  the  work,  and  must  not  be  held  of 
little  worth,  for  assuredly  they  are  my  best  and  most  skilled  work. 

This  from  "De  Augmentis"  accounts  for  what  has  been 
heretofore  an  insoluble  mystery;  namely,  the  appearance  in 
the  so-called  "  Shakespeare "  plays  of  hundreds  of  lines  found 
in  writings  ascribed  to  others,  especially  Spenser.  According 
to  this  Bacon  simply  used  some  of  his  literary  material  over 
again :  — 

I  masqued  many  grave  secrets  in  my  poems  which  I  have  pub- 
lished, now  as  Peele's  or  Spenser's,  now  as  my  own. 

^  From  the  address  of  the  nominal  editors,  Heminge  and  Condell. 

S6i 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Then  again:  — 

To  Robert  Greene  did  I  entrust  most  of  that  work  —  rather  his 
name  appeared  as  author;  therein  you  may  find  a  large  portion 
that,  belonging  truly  to  the  realm  of  poetry,  would  well  grace 
verse,  yet  it  did  not  then  seem  fair  matter  for  it.  As  plays  some 
parts  were  again  used. 

In  1632,  the  memorable  year  of  the  Second  Folio,  William 
Rawley  published  Bacon's  "Sylva  Sylvarum,"  prefacing  it 
with  these  words  in  cipher:  — 

Illy  his  lordship's  works  succeed  when  he  is  dead,  for  the 
Cypher  left  incomplete  I  have  now  finished.  As  you  must  note, 
the  Court  papers  told  the  world  no  secrets,  yet  I  have  stumblingly 
proceeded  with  it  and  unwittingly  used  some  letters  wrongly. 

In  this  work  Bacon  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  his  diligence;  he 
says :  — 

One  must  give  as  great  a  portion  of  time  as  seven  days  in  the 
week  can  furnish,  and  must  not  use  many  hours  for  recreation, 
would  he  leave  aught  of  any  value  to  men,  for  life  is  so  short.  It  is 
for  this  cause  that  I  use  my  time  so  miserlike,  never  spending  a 
moment  idly,  when  in  health. 

Of  the  difficulties  in  the  Queen's  marital  situation,  he  says, 
speaking  of  the  suit  of  one  of  her  rejected  lovers :  — 

The  royal  suitor,  however,  was  angered,  and,  great  ado  mak- 
ing, did  so  disturb  our  great  men,  —  who,  as  birds  are  amidst 
hawkes,  were  thereat  cowering  with  fear  of  public  disgrace,  — 
that  many  saw  this.  As  it  influenced  State  affairs,  it  was  admir- 
able. If  no  act  made  the  heirs  of  Elizabeth  rightfully  bastard,  it 
was  proper  some  means  to  show  legitimacy,  that  will  in  no  way 
cause  tumult  throughout  England,  be  offered.  Any  such  meas- 
ure found  no  kind  of  regard  in  the  sight  of  vain  minded  Queen 
Elizabeth,  whose  look  traineth  men  as  vain  as  her  own  self. 
This  would-be  idol  of  half  the  great  princes  of  Europe,  —  con- 
cluding it  would  be  less  pleasing  in  a  few  years  to  have  all  the 
people  know  that  she  is  the  wife  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  than 
suppose  her  the  Virgin  Queen  she  called  herself,  —  both  props 
and  shields  aHke  despised,  nor  did  she  at  any  subsequent  time 
reverse  her  decision.    For  such  a  trivial,  unworthy,  unrighteous 

562 


CIPHERS 

cause  was  my  birthright  lost.  ...  I  for  dear  life  dare  not  to  urge 
my  claim,  but  hope  that  Time  shall  ope  the  way  unto  my  right- 
ful honors. 

As  he  muses  upon  his  hard  fate  he  utters  these  thoughts :  — 

Our  light  hath  burned  low,  the  beams  of  morning  now  burst 
upon  our  longing  gaze  and  put  to  flight  the  black  night's  dragons 
of  brooding  gloom.  For  ourself  the  future  bringeth  surcease  of 
sorrow.  Had  we  no  secret  labors  to  perform,  gladly  would  we 
listen  to  the  footfall  of  Death,  the  somber  herald;  yet  our  wish  is 
not  as  might  afl"ord  our  own  life  pleasure,  till  it,  our  work,  be 
complete,  inasmuch  as  this  is  more  truly  good  and  important, 
we  do  nothing  doubt,  than  the  works  which  our  hand  openly 
performeth.  .   .   . 

Old  men  have  been  laid  in  the  tomb  and  children  have  be- 
come men,  yet  this  matter  is  in  its  feeble  condition.  'T  is  still 
in  the  cradle,  nor  can  I  have  great  hope  to  see  the  maturity  of 
this  dearly  loved,  long  cherished  dream,  promise  —  I  might  use 
a  still  stronger  or  truer  word,  since  it  is  sometime  —  expectation. 
Then,  too,  sometimes  the  prize  doth  seem  quite  near  —  the  bow 
in  all  the  clouds  doth  give  me  most  trust  in  the  Divine  Eye 
watching  the  course  of  human  life,  guarding,  guiding  every  foot- 
step, and  sharing  our  many  woes. 

At  times  a  divinity  seemeth  truly  to  carve  rudely  hewed  end 
into  beauty,  such  as  God  must  plan  when  we  are  shaped  in  His 
thought,  inasmuch  as  He  can,  aye.  He  doth,  see  the  whole  of  life 
ere  we  draw  the  first  trembling  breath.  This  doth  aid  us  daily 
to  climb  the  heights  of  Pisgah,  where,  crossing  over,  our  souls 
do  see  the  land  of  our  longing  desire. 

'T  is  not  of  others  that  I  write  so  much,  as  of  experiences  un- 
common, and  I  hope  to  most,  impossible,  but  this  hath  been  a 
means  of  achievement  of  a  labour  for  our  fellows  few  could  per- 
form. If  my  selfishness  hath  impelled  me  more  than  was  proper, 
I  trust  somewhat  to  knowledge  of  like  errors  in  their  conduct; 
these  teach  men  to  judge  his  brother  leniently.  A  man  must 
observe  all  sorts  of  form  or  ceremony  in  his  outer  life,  but  the 
heart  hath  its  own  freedom,  and  hath  no  human  ruler.  However, 
himself  is  but  meagre  end  to  a  man's  seeking  when  it  is  made 
first  and  chief,  so  also  is  he  a  poor  middle  point,  center,  and  axis 
of  least  action.  His  soul  is  little  akin  to  things  celestial,  if  like 
the  earth  he  standeth  fast  on  his  center,  for  things  that  have 
afl&nity  with  the  heavens,  move  on  the  center  of  another.    If  he 

563 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

would  not  be  too  earthly,  akin  to  the  dust,  let  him  go  forth  in 
quest  of  knowledge,  sow  wide  this  true  seed  which  may  bear  fruit 
to  give  glad  harvests  in  the  Eons  to  come.  .  .  .  Long  years  ago, 
when  the  Cipher  in  use  at  the  present — in  the  works  we  publish 
as  those  of  authors  that  we  named  some  times  past,  together  with 
all  published  with  the  name  by  which  we  are  now  known  put 
upon  title  pages, — gave  such  a  good  assurance  that  secrets  of 
great  value  might  safely  be  entrusted  to  its  keeping,  a  strong  wish 
to  make  it  so  carry  our  invention  itself  to  other  times,  also  made 
constant  employment  of  it  a  necessity.  Although  the  resolution 
grew  ever  stronger,  't  is  a  thing  rare,  as  you  well  know,  this  keep- 
ing of  a  purpose  unaltered  through  every  change  of  a  man's  life, — 
so  difficult  as  to  seem  impossible;  yet  are  we  so  firmly  fixed  now 
in  the  resolve,  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  yield  it  up. 

This  to  his  decipherer:  — 

You  are  to  get  eleven  old  plays,  published  in  the  name  I  have 
used  lately  at  the  theatre,  and  many  much  valued  by  scenic 
Cesars.  .  .  .  And  therein  you  will  find  the  beginning  of  many 
stories,  both  in  dramatic  form  (also  in  that  raw  unfinished  form) 
and  in  Iambic  verse.  But  the  haste  with  which  some  parts  were 
completed,  will  explain  this.  When  these  plays  may  come  forth, 
for  many  reasons  cannot  now  be  determined,  but  I  promise  you  it 
shall  be  soon.  "Wisely  and  slow,"  is  a  proverb  oft  on  my  lips,  and 
as  oft  unheeded  even  by  myself.  But  an  axe  that  cutteth  well 
must  be  well  sharpened  —  then  it  doth  become  us  all  to  look 
well  to  our  instruments :  — 

For  you  must  cut  apart  my  various  books. 

Spreading  them  out  upon  a  marked  scrutoire, 

Which,  as  the  chart  or  map  the  sailor  hath 

Doth  point  out  every  country  of  the  world, 

In  fair,  clear  lines,  this  great  expanse  doth  name, 

So  fair  and  beauteous  the  bound  I  set. 

Though  't  is  at  risk  of  this  secret  design. 

Then  separate  each  part,  to  join  again 

According  to  your  guide  hereby  discloseth. 

In  rich  mosaics,  wondrous  to  behold, 

To  be  admired  by  all  the  sons  of  men. 

Here  is  a  crown,  gem-starred,  and  golden  scepter, 

A  cross  and  ball  —  insignia  of  rank, 

Even  of  royalty,  so  pure  and  high 

No  blur  is  on  it,  but  like  to  frost  flowers, 

564 


CIPHERS 

January's  blossoms  Icy  white, 
It  gleameth  in  the  light  of  each  fair  morn. 
Oh  let  not  man  forget  these  words  divine: 
"Inscrutable  do  hearts  of  kings  remain." 
If  he  remark  a  pensive  dying  fall 
In  the  music  of  these  strains,  let  him  forbear 
To  question  of  its  meaning.   List  again,  — 
As  hath  been,  is,  and  evermore  shall  be  — 
Ages  retard  your  flight  and  turn  to  hear  — 
Cor  regis  inscrutabile.  Amen. 
Yet  't  is  the  glory  of  our  Heavenly  King 
To  shroud  in  mystery  His  works  divine. 
And  to  kings  mundane  ever  shall  rebound 
In  greatest  compass  glory  to  the  names 
Of  such  as  seek  out  Nature's  mysteries; 
Fortune  may  aid  him;  Honor  may  attend; 
Truth  waits  upon  him;  as  we  look,  cramped  Art 
Doth  reach  forth  to  fair  light,  undreamed  of  lore; 
While  Reputation  soundeth  through  the  world 
Unto  Time's  close,  glory  in  (highest)  measure, 
To  him  that  to  the  depths  doth  search  wide  Seas, 
Did  deep  into  the  Earth,  unto  the  Air 
And  region  of  the  Fire  climb  fearlessly, 
Till  he  the  World,  the  Heavens  and  even  the  Universe,  — 
With  human  eyes  that  better  can  discern 
Than  mountain  eagle,  gazing  at  the  sun,  — 
Doth  find  out  secrets  hid  from  humankind 
Since  the  foundations  of  the  earth  were  laid, 
Stamped  with  the  impress  of  the  Heavenly  Hand; 
And  in  grave  music  deep  to  deep  did  call. 
While  morning  stars  together  sang  a  hymn 
Time  lendeth  to  Eternity  for  aye. 

And  of  the  proposed  First  Folio:  — 

The  new  arrangement  is  not  less  weighed,  studied,  and  care- 
fully balanced,  for  I  aimed  only  to  write  with  truth  in  every  part, 
and  to  set  that  one  gem  above  other  treasure,  that  no  man  shall 
say  in  any  time  to  be,  "The  fruit  is  as  the  apples  that,  turning 
to  ashes,  drove  olden  heroes  to  curse  Sodom's  deceitfulness."  In 
due  time  a  strength,  far  reaching  thought  greatly  hath  increased, 
cometh  to  your  eye  in  this  latter  work,  that  also  must  be  known 
to  many  by  reading  any  such  work  as  my  drama  entitled  First 
Part  of  King  Henry  the  Fourth.  The  Second  Part  of  the  same, 
and  one  entitled  Othello,  reveal  knowledge  of  life  wanting  in 

S6S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

the  common  plays  that  had  this  pen-name  on  title  page.  These 
are,  as  I  many  times  have  said,  the  crowning  glory  of  my  pen,  even 
though  there  be  degrees,  as  surely  you  must  know,  of  excellence 
therein;  but  the  cause  you  may  as  well  have  learned  since  it  was 
clearly  shown  to  depend  upon  times,  and  likewise  upon  the  nature, 
as  well  of  the  hidden  as  of  the  open  story.  ^  Therefore  some  will 
be  omitted  from  my  Folio,  but  some  retained  for  causes  now 
given. 

To  fix  my  rules  well  in  your  mind  is  the  most  essential  thing  at 
the  moment,  and  many  were  put  within  those  which  one  must 
acknowledge  possess  little  value.  As  half  the  number  I  shall  as- 
semble have  already  appeared  in  Will  Shakespeare's  name,  I 
think  that  it  will  be  well  to  bring  out  the  Folio,  also,  by  some 
means  in  the  same  name,  —  although  he  be  gone  to  that  undis- 
covered country  from  whose  borne  no  traveler  returns,  —  be- 
cause our  king  would  be  prompt  to  avenge  the  insult  if  his  right 
to  reign  were  challenged,  and  the  sword  of  a  king  is  long  and 
where  't  will  not  extend  thither  he  darteth  it.  And  as  concerneth 
the  plays,  the  truth  cometh  forth  more  quickly  from  an  error  than 
from  confusion,  and  therefore  it  is  most  certain  that  it  would 
by  far  be  more  the  part  of  wise  and  discerning  minds  to  let  this 
name  of  a  man  known  to  the  theatre,  and  his  former  gay  com- 
pany of  fellow-players,  stand  thus  on  plays  to  him  as  little  known, 
despite  a  long  term  of  service,  as  to  a  babe.  I,  thinking  expedient 
so  to  do,  now  obey  the  Scripture,  and  cast  my  very  bread  to  the 
winds  or  sow  it  on  the  waters.  How  shall  it  be  at  the  harvest.^ 
Fame  it  may  chance  for  the  works  shall  come,  tho'  not  to  the 
author  who  hid  with  so  great  pains  his  name  that  at  this  writing 't 
is  quite  unguessed.  And  the  time  I  am  given  to  spend  upon  the 
work  is  as  gold,  princely  gems,  or  purple  robes. ^ 

As  some  of  the  plays  are  histories  they  are  not  always  men- 
tioned as  dramas,  but  I  will  now  make  out  a  table  naming  all  you 
are  to  decipher.  There  are  five  Histories  as  follows :  The  Life  of 
Elizabeth,  The  Life  of  Essex,  The  White  Rose  of  Britain,  The 
Life  and  Death  of  Edward  Third,  the  Life  of  Henry  the  Seventh; 
five  Tragedies ;  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  Robert  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
(my  late  brother)  Robert  the  Earl  of  Leicester  (my  late  father) 
Death  of  Marlowe,  Anne  Bullen;  three  Comedies:  Seven  Wise 
Men  of  the  West,  Solomon  the  Second,  the  Mouse-Trap. 

*  The  "Doubtful  Plays"  so-called,  and  those  assigned  to  Peele,  Greene,  and 
others. 

*  Biliteral  Cipher ^  p.  157  et  seq. 

566 


CIPHERS 

Of  "Much  Ado  About  Nothing,"  he  says:  — 

We  place  as  great  value  upon  this  play  as  we  shall  any  we  can 
write,  for  it  is  our  own  father,  his  life,  a  theme  so  much  in  my 
own  dark  memory  that  I  must  needs  think  of  it  often,  and  thus 
its  wrongs  moving  strong  indignation  within  me,  my  tongue  and 
pen  are  fired  to  eloquence.  And  the  scenes  do  show  the  fury  of 
the  heart  within  them  —  the  words  burn  with  a  celestial  light,  for 
to  my  soul  it  lent  its  ray  divine,  even  as  I  wrote. 

Don  John  alone  reflects  the  character  of  Leicester. 
Says  Brandes :  — 

In  the  person  of  Don  John,  the  poet  has  depicted  mere  unmixed 
evil,  and  has  disdained  to  supply  a  motive  for  his  vile  action  in 
any  single  injury  received,  or  desire  unsatisfied.  .  .  .  There  is 
little  to  object  to  in  Don  John's  repulsive  scoundrelism;  at  most 
we  may  say  that  it  is  strange  motive  power  for  a  comedy. 

Coleridge  says :  — 

"Don  John  is  the  mainspring  of  the  plot  of  this  play;  but  he  is 
merely  shown  and  then  withdrawn." 

And  Mabie:  — 

Brilliant,  spirit  charged  with  vivacity,  and  sparkling  with  wit; 
it  is  a  master-piece  of  keen  characterization,  of  flashing  conver- 
sation, of  striking  contrasts  of  type,  and  of  intellectual  energy, 
playing  freely  and  buoyantly  against  a  background  of  exquisite 
beauty.  .  .  .  The  gayety  and  brilliancy  of  the  great  world  as  con- 
trasted with  the  little  world  of  rural  and  provincial  society  are 
expressed  with  a  confidence  and  consistency  which  indicate  that 
the  poet  must  have  known  something  of  the  court  circle,  and  of 
the  accomplished  women  who  moved  in  it. 

Of  Elizabeth's  character  the  cipher  gives  this  graphic 
picture :  — 

Elizabeth,  who  thought  to  outcraft  all  the  powers  that  be, 
suppressed  all  hints  of  her  marriage,  for  no  known  object  if  it  be 
not  that  her  desire  to  sway  Europe  had  some  likelihood,  thus,  of 
coming  to  fulfilment.  Many  were  her  suitors,  with  whom  she 
executed  the  figures  of  a  dance,  advancing,  retreating,  leading, 
or  following  in  sweet  sympathy  to  the  music's  call.  But  ever 
was  there  a  dying  fall  in  those  strains  —  none  might  hear  only  she 

567 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

or  my  father —  and  the  dancer's  feet  never  led  to  Hymen's  lofty 
altar  thereafter. 

A  fear  seemed  to  haunt  her  mind  that  a  king  might  suit  the 
mounting  ambitions  of  a  people  that  began  to  seek  a  New  At- 
lantis beyond  the  western  seas.  Some  doubtless  longed  for  a  royal 
leader  of  the  troops,  when  war's  black  eagles  threatened  the  realm, 
which  Elizabeth  met  in  two  ways  —  by  showing  a  kingly  spirit 
when  subjects  were  admitted  into  the  presence  chamber,  and 
by  the  most  constant  opposition  to  war,  as  well  was  known  to 
her  council.  Many  supposing  miserly  love  of  gold  uppermost  in 
mind  and  spirit,  made  but  partial  and  cursory  note  of  her  natural 
propension,  so  to  speak,  or  the  bent  of  the  disposition,  for  behind 
every  other  passion  and  vanity  moving  her,  the  fear  of  being 
deposed  rankled  and  urged  her  to  a  policy  not  yet  understood. 

The  wars  of  Edward,  called  The  Third,  —  but  who  might  be 
named  the  first  amongst  heroes,  —  and  of  his  bold  son,  known  as 
Edward  the  Black  Prince,  of  brave  Henry  Fifth,  and  her  grand- 
sire  Henry  Seventh,  as  well  as  one  of  her  father,  his  short  strifes, 
were  not  yet  out  of  memory  of  the  people.  Many  pens  kept  all 
these  fresh  in  their  minds.  She,  as  a  grave  physician,  therefore, 
kept  a  finger  on  the  wrist  of  the  public,  so,  doubtless,  found 
it  the  part  of  prudence  to  put  the  Princes,  —  my  brother,  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  and  myself  —  out  of  the  sight  of  the  people. 

Yet  in  course  of  time  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  our  subtle  father, 
handled  matters  so  that  he  came  nearer  to  obtaining  the  crown 
for  my  brother  than  suited  my  tastes  and  fitness  for  learning. 
Stopping  short  of  this  irreparable  wrong,  my  father  took  but 
slight  interest  in  the  things  he  had  been  so  hot  upon,  and  the 
trouble  regarding  his  wild  projects  was  at  a  time  much  later  — 
subsequent  to  the  death  of  our  father. 

Though  constantly  hemmed  about,  threatened,  kept  under  sur- 
veillance, I  have  written  this  history  in  full  in  the  Cipher,  being 
fully  persuaded,  in  my  own  mind  and  heart,  that  not  only  jesting 
Pilate,  but  the  world  ask:  "What  is  truth.?"  and  when  they  read 
the  hidden  history  of  our  times,  and  of  that  greatly  renowned 
maiden-queen,  Elizabeth,  —  it  shall  appear  misplaced  when  you 
put  my  work,  as  you  here  shall  find  it,  into  a  form  readily  under- 
stood. 

Bacon  realized  that  the  question  might  be  asked,  Why  he 
should  employ  a  cipher  in  writing  of  events  in  Elizabeth's 
reign?  He  says:  — 

S68 


CIPHERS 

The  reason  Is  not  far  to  seek;  't  is  this :  the  many  spies  employed 
by  our  mother,  the  constant  watchful  eyes  she  had  upon  us,  mark- 
ing our  going  out  and  our  coming  in,  our  rising  up  and  all  our 
movements  from  the  rising  of  the  sun,  to  his  rising  upon  the  fol- 
lowing morning;  not  a  moment  when  we  could  openly  write  and 
publish  a  true,  accurate  history  of  our  times,  since  nought  which 
Her  Majesty  disapproved  could  ever  find  a  printer. 

Of  Dudley's  character  he  says :  — 

It  is,  I  doubt  not,  well  remembered  that  he  suffered  imprison- 
ment because  he  was  in  a  measure  concerned  in  the  attempt  to 
enthrone  Lady  Jane  Grey;  yet,  being  at  length  released,  his  sun 
of  prosperity  rose  high,  for  his  union  with  Elizabeth,  afterward 
queen,  made  him  first  in  this  kingdom,  next  to  this  royal  spouse. 
But  not  being  acknowledged  such,  publicly,  nor  sharing  in  her 
honors,  my  poor  father  was  but  a  cipher,  albeit  standing  where 
he  should  multiply  the  value  of  that  one. 

For  the  space  of  nineteen  or  twenty  years,  my  father,  gay 
court-idol  as  he  was,  guarded  his  secret  and  basked  in  the  sun- 
shine of  royal  favor.  By  degrees  he  was  given  title  and  style 
suiting  so  vain  a  mind  better  then  would  the  weight  of  govern- 
ment, were  that  conferred  on  him.  He  was  first  made  Master 
of  the  Horse;  this  gave  him  control  of  the  stables,  and  gave  him 
such  place  in  the  royal  processions,  as  he  very  truly  desired  next 
Her  Majesty ;  also,  she  conferred  upon  him  the  Order  of  the  Garter, 
and  divers  other  marks  of  favor,  whilst  to  bear  out  their  stage- 
play  until  their  parts  should  be  done.  Her  Majesty,  most  like 
some  loud  player,  proclaimed  Baron  Dudley,  Earl  of  Leicester, 
suitor  to  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and  at  all  admonitory  protests 
which  the  haried  husband  uttered,  this  wayward  Queen  went 
on  more  recklessly. 

Therefore  we  must  marvel  to  see  him  later  claim  advantage  of 
Her  Majesty's  bold  mood  to  take  another  partner  to  his  bosom, 
rightly  divining  that  she  would  not  show  cause  why  such  an 
union  could  not  be  fitly  considered  or  consummated,  but  ven- 
turing not  upon  full  confession  thereof.  However,  Her  Majesty 
dwelt  not  for  long  in  ignoble  inaction  —  the  force  that  she  gave 
to  her  angry  denunciation  affrighting  the  wits  of  this  poor  earl, 
until  he  was  again  turning  over  expedients  to  rid  her  of  this  rival. 
Suspicion  again  fell  on  the  misguided  man,  of  seeking  to  murder 
the  partner  of  his  joys,  but  Heaven  brought  his  own  doom  sud- 
denly upon  him.    So  doth  this  act  end. 

569 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Considering  the  character  of  Elizabeth  and  Dudley  as  here 
set  forth,  much  that  might  seem  to  us  strange  in  the  cipher 
story  vanishes.  Elizabeth  is  said  to  have  taken  pride  in  re- 
sembling her  father,  Henry  VHI,  whom  history  represents  as 
having  marked  his  reign  by  an  exhibition  of  selfish  passions, 
and  the  exercise  of  an  imperious  will.  Having  been  thrown 
into  the  Tower  in  1554,  she  escaped  death  by  a  hair's  breadth, 
as  a  warrant  for  her  immediate  execution  was  sent  to  the  gov- 
ernor of  that  bloody  prison,  which  he  would  have  promptly 
obeyed  had  not  his  friendship  for  her  impelled  him  to  apply  to 
Mary  for  its  confirmation.  There  this  young  and  headstrong 
girl  had  the  joy  of  finding  Robert  Dudley,  a  youthful  friend, 
supposedly  awaiting  death.  At  this  time  the  prisoners  of  state 
were  permitted  considerable  liberty,  though  not  long  after, 
attention  being  drawn  to  the  subject,  it  was  abridged,  and  it 
would  not  be  strange  if  Dudley,  whose  way  with  women  is  a 
subject  of  history,  formed  a  liaison  with  this  neglected  girl. 
The  conditions  surrounding  them  were  disheartening,  and 
in  themselves  would  tend  to  promote  sympathetic  relations. 
Nor  is  it  strange,  when  Elizabeth  in  1558  unexpectedly  came 
to  the  throne,  and  Dudley  was  free  from  his  marital  bonds, 
that  he  should  seek  to  advance  his  fortunes  by  a  legal  mar- 
riage with  his  former  mistress,  the  so-called  ceremony  in  the 
Tower  being,  perhaps,  a  mock  affair.  Such  a  popular  clamor, 
however,  was  raised  at  the  suspicious  taking-off  of  his  wife 
that  a  public  marriage  was  out  of  the  question :  hence  a  secret 
one  was  prudent. 

Elizabeth,  now  a  queen  exercising  almost  unlimited  power, 
was  in  an  embarrassing  position.  To  acknowledge  openly  her 
marriage  with  a  subject  as  unpopular  as  Dudley  might  imperil 
her  throne,  which  even  her  infatuation  for  him  would  not  per- 
mit. In  this  dilemma  there  was  but  one  course  open  for  the 
present,  which  was  to  keep  silence  and  let  affairs  drift. 

To  pacify  him  she  loaded  him  with  favors,  and  kept  him 
beside  her,  while  he,  enjoying  almost  regal  power,  contented 

S70 


CIPHERS 

himself  as  best  he  could,  watching  for  a  change  in  the  current 
of  events  which  might  eventually  land  him  on  higher  ground, 
while  the  sometimes  fickle  but  ever  imperious  Elizabeth 
happily  pursued  her  course,  smiling  upon  her  many  suitors, 
who  pampered  her  vain  soul  with  flattery,  and  guiding  with 
silken  reins,  more  or  less  successfully,  the  Car  of  Empire.  If 
we  take  this  view  of  the  subject,  which  history  warrants  us  in 
doing,  the  cipher  story  is  not  strange ;  indeed,  far  less  strange 
than  many  facts  in  orthodox  history. 

This  is  what  Bacon  says  of  his  purpose  of  continuing  the 
anonymity  of  a  portion  of  his  works  to  another  age,  a  purpose 
in  accord  with  the  plan  disclosed  in  his  philosophical  works. 

Some  might  not  trust  a  labor  of  years  to  oblivion,  and  hope 
that  it  may  one  day  be  summoned  to  take  upon  it,  one  happy 
sunlit  morning,  its  own  form;  yet  doth  some  thought  uphold  me, 
—  so  hopefully  my  heart  doth  cling  to  its  last  desire,  I  write  on 
each  "Resurgam,"  believing  they  shall,  even  like  man,  arise  from 
the  dust  to  rejoice  again  in  newness  of  life. 

In  "Henry  VII,"  Bacon  tells  his  decipherer:  — 

If  you  leave  searching  out  the  keys  and  putting  apart  the  ma- 
terials for  the  building  of  the  palaces,  you  will  be  as  a  beggar 
going  from  door  to  door  without  a  wall  that  can  keep  off  tem- 
pestuous winds,  or  a  roof  to  shelter  you.  Yet  if  you  shall,  as  I 
direct,  patiently  collect  the  blocks  of  marble,  which  are  already 
polished  and  prepared,  — 

Like  to  a  king's  the  shining  walls  shall  rise, 
While  high  upon  the  lofty  gleaming  towers 
The  golden  roof  may  outbrave  Illium's. 
No  sound  shall  come  of  any  instruments, 
As  any  iron  tools,  or  ax,  or  hammer; 
As  in  the  beauteous  temple,  as  we  read. 
In  silent  grandeur  stone  on  stone  was  reared, 
So  noiseless,  so  inaudible  shall  be 
The  building  of  my  glorious  palaces. 
Let  no  conspiracy  to  make  you  leave 
For  idol  Fancy's  noble  Truth's  fair  realm, 
A  moment  w'n  you,  but  for  this  assay 
Break  cressive  love,  throw  oif  the  filmy  band! 
Nor  in  the  mazes  of  a  winding  way 

571 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Is  risked  a  foot  of  him  that  would  out-go 
In  fleetness  steps  of  winged  Mercury; 
Then  stray  not  in,  or,  ere  one  is  aware. 
The  entrance  to  the  labyrinth  's  quite  lost  — 
The  unmarking  eyes  nor  see  nor  read  the  signs 
Which  of  the  strait  and  narrow  way  do  make, 
A  shining  pathway  to  the  golden  mount. 

The  purposes,  like  to  a  weather-cock  that  chang'd, 
Turning  ere  lazy  eyes  had  noted  it. 
Ne'er  made  one  master  of  the  Grecian  art,  — 

I  eke  in  verse,  sing  of  my  one  great  theme; 
In  verse  we  told  the  story  of  our  birth. 
If  one  or  other  should  on  halting  feet, 
Limp  on  apace,  lenify  easily. 
And  oft  undo  parts  never  justly  given 
So  that  at  best  this  shall  by  iteration, 
Show  its  full  use. 

In  the  "New  Atlantis,"  published  also  in  the  same  year, 
Bacon  again  recurs  to  the  past.  Of  Marguerite  of  Valois,  his 
early  love,  he  says :  — 

Even  when  I  learned  her  perfidy,  love  did  keep  her  like  the 
angels  in  my  thoughts  half  of  the  time  —  as  to  the  other  half 
she  was  devilish,  and  I  myself  was  plunged  into  hell.  This  lasted 
during  many  years,  and,  not  until  four  decades,  or  eight  lustres 
of  life  were  outlived,  did  I  take  any  other  to  my  sore  heart.  Then 
I  married  the  woman  who  hath  put  Marguerite  from  my  memory 
—  rather,  I  should  say,  hath  banished  her  portrait  to  the  walls  of 
memory,  only,  where  it  doth  hang  in  the  pure  undimmed  beauty 
of  those  early  days  —  while  her  most  lovely  presence  doth  possess 
this  entire  mansion  of  heart  and  brain. 

He  thus  again  addresses  his  decipherer:  — 

Labour,  I  do  entreate  thee,  with  all  diligence  to  draw  forth  the 
numerous  rules  for  use  in  writing  out  these  secret  works.  It  is 
now  the  only  desire  that  hath  likelihood  of  grand  fulfilment.  .  .  . 

Unto  God  do  we  lift  up  our  souls  imploring  of  Him  aid,  bless- 
ing, and  light  for  the  illumination  of  the  works  we  leave. 

Objectors  to  the  cipher  ask  two  principal  questions;  the 
first,  Why  did  Bacon  want  to  hide  his  identity  behind  a 

S7^ 


CIPHERS 

cipher?  the  second,  Why,  since  he  described  ciphers,  was  it 
not  discovered  that  he  used  one  in  his  books  ?  The  first  he  so 
completely  answers  himself  that  we  need  not  concern  our- 
selves with  it;  the  second  is  best  answered  by  the  question. 
Why  is  it  that  even  now  with  the  keys  before  them  men  do  not 
study  and  apply  the  cipher  sufficiently  to  discover  whether  it 
does  or  does  not  exist  ?  The  reason  is  the  difficulty  of  doing  so. 
It  requires  trained  eyes  and  the  severest  application ;  in  fact, 
as  much  exacting  labor  as  to  learn  to  read  Greek.  But  few  so 
far  have  been  willing  to  devote  to  its  study  the  labor  required 
to  master  it,  and  then  endorse  it.  Prominently  among  these  is 
Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock,  whose  testimony  alone  should  entitle  it 
to  serious  consideration.  We  will  quote  him  now  not  as  a 
Baconian  but  as  a  student :  — 

Of  all  the  critical  paradoxes  that  have  ever  been  seriously  ad- 
vocated, few  have  been  received  with  such  general  and  derisive 
indifference  as  that  which  declares  Bacon  to  have  been  the  au- 
thor of  the  dramas  ascribed  to  Shakespeare,  and  which  couples 
this  declaration  with  another —  more  startling  still  —  that  these 
dramas  are  not  dramas  only,  but  are  besides  a  series  of  writings 
in  cipher,  whose  inner  meaning  bears  no  relation  whatever  to  the 
ostensible  meaning  as  dramas,  but  which  consists  of  memoranda 
or  memoirs  concerning  Bacon  himself,  and  secrets  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  The  mere  theory  that  Bacon  was  the  real  author  of 
the  plays,  though  the  mass  of  Shakespeare's  readers  still  set  it 
down  as  an  illusion,  does  not,  indeed,  contain  anything  essentially 
shocking  to  common  sense.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  generally  rec- 
ognized that  on  purely  a  priori  grounds  there  is  less  to  shock 
common  sense  in  the  idea  that  those  wonderful  compositions 
were  the  work  of  a  scholar,  a  philosopher,  a  statesman,  and  a 
profound  man  of  the  world,  than  there  is  in  the  idea  that  they 
were  the  work  of  a  notoriously  ill-educated  actor,  who  seems  to 
have  found  some  difficulty  in  signing  his  own  name.^ 

Mr.  Mallock  could  hardly  dismiss  the  subject  in  this  man- 
ner. He  continued,  as  some  others  have,  to  study  it  more 
deeply.  In  1903,  over  a  year  later,  he  wrote  an  interesting  ar- 

^  Nineteenth  Century,  December,  1901. 

573 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

tide,  in  which  he  gave  the  results  of  his  labor. ^  He  had  found 
by  this  time  the  difficulties  which  one  who  attempts  to  acquire 
proficiency  in  the  decipherer's  art  is  certain  to  encounter,  but 
with  the  true  spirit  of  research,  these  only  nerved  him  to 
more  effort.  He  says :  — 

One  of  Mrs.  Gallup's  most  remarkable  contentions  is  that  a 
Bacon  cipher  exists  in  the  italic  preface  to  Spenser's  "Com- 
plaints," edition  1591.  The  printing  of  the  preface  is  exception- 
ally fine,  and  Mrs.  Gallup  gave,  in  her  book,  an  excellent  photo- 
graphic facsimile  of  it.  To  this  preface,  moreover,  she  appended 
her  own  interpretation  of  it,  deciphered  letter  by  letter.  Now, 
amongst  the  letters  here  used  there  are  five  the  employment  of 
which  in  two  forms  is  so  clear  that  no  human  being  can  doubt 
about  it.  We  will  confine  our  attention  to  these.  They  are  the 
capital  G'syoi  which  two  examples  occur,  six  capital  Fs,  two  capi- 
tal P's,  seventeen  small  p's,  and  twenty-eight  small  zv^s.  The  dif- 
ferences between  the  two  forms  are  as  marked  as  in  the  following 
equivalents :  — 

G  C,  73,  TP,pp,  W  or, 

We  have  here  twenty-five  letters  in  all,  and,  except  in  the 
cases  of  three  small  p^s,  Mrs.  Gallup's  rendering,  beyond  any 
possibility  of  doubt,  accords  with  the  differences  which  exist 
between  the  two  forms  of  each.  That  is  to  say,  she  has,  if  her 
work  be  not  genuine,  at  all  events  so  constructed  and  manipu- 
lated a  fictitious  rendering  that  at  fifty-two  points,  scattered 
over  two  small  pages,  it  accurately  fits  in  with  corresponding 
peculiarities  in  the  text.  Let  any  of  Mrs.  Gallup's  critics  try  to 
perform  a  similar  feat,  even  on  so  small  a  scale  as  this,  and  they 
will  realize  something  of  the  extraordinary  labour  and  ingenuity 
which  Mrs.  Gallup  must  have  expended  on  her  work,  if  we  sup- 
pose it  to  be  a  mere  imposture.  The  facts  just  mentioned  give 
us  some  ground,  at  all  events,  for  supposing  that  her  work  may 
possibly  have  some  foundation  in  reality. 

This  test,  made  by  a  man  who  at  the  outset  was  an  utter 
skeptic,  and  his  testimony  to  the  validity  of  the  cipher,  as 
far  as  he  had  then  proceeded,  is  the  best  proof  in  its  favor 
that  possibly  could  have  been  produced.    But  Mr.  Mallock 

*  Pall  Mall  Magazine,  1903. 

574 


CIPHERS 

zealously  continued  his  tests,  and  this  is  another  of  his  ex- 
periments :  — 

I  selected  at  random  an  italic  passage  from  the  First  Folio  — 
Lady  Macbeth's  Epistle  to  her  Husband;  and  got  Mrs.  Gallup  to 
send  me  her  rendering  of  it  letter  by  letter.  I  then  had  the  passage 
photographically  enlarged  from  four  different  copies  of  the  origi- 
nal. I  marked  the  letters  according  to  Mrs.  Gallup's  directions, 
thus  separating  them  into  what  she  alleges  to  be  two  alphabets; 
I  compared  each  letter  which  she  alleges  to  belong  to  one  fount 
with  the  corresponding  letter  which  she  alleges  to  belong  to  the 
other,  and  endeavored  to  see  how  far  there  was  any  real  differ- 
ence between  them.  The  result  of  this  examination,  as  stated 
by  me  in  the  "Nineteenth  Century,"  was  to  show  that  such  a 
difference  certainly  does  exist  in  the  case  of  almost  two  thirds 
of  the  letters,  whilst,  in  the  case  of  the  rest,  I  myself  failed  to 
detect  it. 

When,  however,  I  wrote  in  the  "Nineteenth  Century,"  I  had 
made  my  comparisons  merely  by  juxtaposing  the  letters,  and 
examining  them  side  by  side.  Since  then  I  have  employed  a  more 
accurate  method.  Taking  an  enlargement  of  the  passage,  the 
letters  of  which  are  half  an  inch  in  height,  I  placed  the  sheet  on 
a  transparent  glass  desk,  such  as  is  used  by  photographers  for 
the  purpose  of  retouching  negatives,  and  carefully  traced  in  red 
ink,  with  a  drawing  pen,  the  letters  which  Mrs.  Gallup  allocates 
to  the  A  fount,  filling  in  the  outlines  with  a  thin  wash  of  red.  I 
then  placed  each  of  these  letters  in  order  over  the  corresponding 
letters  which  she  allocates  to  the  B  fount  and  made  a  tracing  of 
the  outlines  of  the  latter  in  black  ink,  so  that  it  is  seen  at  once 
how  the  outlines  of  the  two  forms  differ.  The  results  agree  for 
the  most  part  with,  but  here  and  there  differ  slightly  from,  the 
results  of  my  previous  examinations.  I  here  reproduce  my  trac- 
ings of  thirteen  letters  of  the  alphabet.  They  comprise  those 
whose  use  is  most  frequent  in  English,  and  which  would  make 
up  about  two-thirds  of  an  average  English  paragraph.  Next  to 
six  of  these  letters,  used  in  the  First  Folio,  I  have  placed  copies 
of  the  letters  drawn  by  Bacon  himself,  as  examples  of  bi-formed 
letters  for  use  in  a  bi-literal  cipher. 

The  letters  from  the  Folio,  when  magnified,  as  the  reader  will 
see,  are  very  ragged.  This,  as  a  comparison  of  various  copies 
shows,  is  due  to  irregularities  in  the  inking,  and  kindred  causes; 
but,  in  spite  of   these  obscuring  accidents,  the  reader  will  see 

S7S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

that  the  shape  of  the  shaded  letters  —  those  allocated  by  Mrs. 
Gallup  to  the  A  fount,  differ  systematically  from  the  outlined 
letters  —  those  allocated  by  her  to  the  B  fount.  In  the  case, 
moreover,  of  the  letters  in  which  Bacon's  own  drawings  are 
given,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  differences  between  the  two  forms 
occurring  in  the  Folio  are  of  precisely  the  same  kind  as  the  differ- 
ences in  the  drawings  of  Bacon.  For  instance,  the  "a"  of  the 
A  fount  in  Bacon's  drawing  is  hump-backed.  So  are  the  "a's" 
which  Mrs.  Gallup  allocates  to  the  same  fount  in  the  Folio. 
Again,  the  two  forms  of  "m"  and  "n"  in  Bacon's  drawings  are 
distinguished  by  the  fact  that  the  final  curl  in  the  B  form  sticks 
out  rather  than  the  final  curl  in  the  A  form.  The  "m's"  and 
"n's"  in  the  Folio,  as  discriminated  by  Mrs.  Gallup,  differ  in 
precisely  the  same  way.  A  similar  observation  applies  to  the 
"e's"  and  "i's." 

The  other  letters,  as  drawn  in  two  forms  by  Bacon,  are  in  forms 
peculiar  to  manuscript,  and  are  not  comparable  with  printed 
letters  at  all.  Of  the  Folio  equivalents  of  these  other  letters,  the 
tracings  of  which  are  here  given,  the  "f's,"  "g's,"  "u's,"  "p's," 
"y's,"  and  "w's,"  may  be  left  to  speak  for  themselves,  but  it 
may  be  well  to  call  special  attention  to  the  "e's"  and  "h's."  The 
shaded  "e's"  A  fount  —  are  all  more  upright  than  the  outlined 
"e's"  —  B  fount;  and  the  shaded  "h's"  are  all  narrower  than 
those  given  in  outline.  I  have  given  a  number  of  examples  of 
these  letters  in  order  to  show  that  the  differences  are  not  fortu- 
itous. The  remaining  letters,  especially  the  "b's,"  "d's,"  "o's," 
and  "t's"  present  no  differences  in  form  that  I  myself  have  been 
yet  able  to  discover;  and  certain  differences  which  I  once  thought 
I  had  perceived  disappeared  under  the  ordeal  of  the  double 
tracings.  Such  differences  may  exist  —  it  rests  with  Mrs.  Gallup 
to  show  us  what  they  are.  Meanwhile,  speaking  of  the  writer 
from  a  purely  typographical  point  of  view,  we  may  say  that  her 
alleged  "cipher"  has  a  considerable  basis  in  typographical  facts, 
but  that  a  large  portion  of  the  evidence  that  would  be  necessary 
to  prove  its  reality  is  thus  far  missing. 

There  remains,  then,  the  following  question.  Because  this 
evidence  is  missing,  are  we  forced  to  conclude  that  it  cannot 
possibly  exist  .^  In  other  words,  does  the  fact  that  to  the  ordinary 
eye  the  forms  of  certain  of  the  letters  appear  to  be  all  the  same, 
show  that  they  may  not  possess  some  obscured  and  elusive  differ- 
ences, such  as  the  requirements  of  the  cipher  would  demand,  and 
which  were  intended  to  play  a  part  in  it.^ 

576 


d  u^ 


Jw^fi  A'%  ,  as  dftiA^n  ^  3^<^^ 


Tu-c  <f'f  J.  Y'rti. -H    •»  &e^t<^i 


'm€§tMA 


J  i  s 


ii     I  I 


fmmnm 


71  n 


i. 


<.if':M^m  7u.m-w%jk 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

than  in  private  manuscript;  and  that  to  impute  to  him  even  the 
bare  idea  that  it  might  be  used  in  print  is  an  absurdity.  He  ac- 
cordingly went  on  to  declare,  in  a  letter  written  to  myself,  that 
on  the  page  from  the  "De  Augmentis"  of  1662,  which  I  repro- 
duced in  the  "Nineteenth  Century,"  the  two  italic  alphabets 
are  merely  the  same  alphabet  duplicated;  and  he  paid  me  the 
handsome  compliment  of  asking  whether  the  delusions  of  the 
Baconians  could  be  wondered  at,  when  an  intelligent  person  like 
myself  was  so  led  away  by  their  folly,  as  to  persuade  myself  that 
there  were  differences  in  two  alphabets  which  were  obviously  the 
same. 

Since  Father  Thurston  expressed  these  views  to  me,  I  have 
had  the  page  in  question  enlarged  on  a  much  greater  scale.  I 
have  examined  also  four  other  editions  —  all  of  them  printed  in 
Holland,  as  was  the  one  just  mentioned.  They  are  the  editions 
of  1645,  1694,  1696,  and  1730.  The  two  last  are  merely  reprints 
of  the  second.  We  need  therefore  consider  the  first  and  the  second 
only,  together  with  that  just  mentioned,  of  1662.  These,  though 
they  are  all  of  the  same  minute  size,  have  been  set  up  separately, 
each  in  its  special  type.  No  one  who  compares  carefully  the  pas- 
sage now  in  question,  as  it  appears  in  these  three  editions,  will  be 
able  to  doubt  for  a  moment  that  Bacon's  illustration  of  his  cipher 
is  there  reproduced  in  two  separate  italic  alphabets.  The  letters 
are  so  small,  that  most  of  these  must  be  studied  with  a  magnify- 
ing glass  before  the  precise  differences  between  the  two  forms  are 
visible,  but  the  differences  between  certain  of  them  are  apparent 
to  the  naked  eye;  and  these  alone  are  enough  to  show  that  the 
deliberate  intention  of  the  printers  was  to  employ  two  forms  of 
type.  This  is  specially  apparent  in  the  edition  of  1694,  "^^e  print- 
ing of  which  is  beautiful  —  sharper  and  more  delicate  than  that 
of  the  others.  The  delicate  duality  of  the  two  forms  of  small  "s" 
and  "x"  may  be  specially  noted.  I  am  unable  here  to  give  an  en- 
largement from  this  volume,  but  must  content  myself  with  falling 
back  on  my  largest  and  latest  reproduction  of  the  corresponding 
page  in  the  edition  of  1662  —  the  edition  in  which  Father  Thurston 
declared  that  both  alphabets  were  alike.  I  will  deal  here  with  two 
letters  only  —  the  "g's"  and  the  "p's,"  and  I  will  exhibit  them 
as  they  appear  both  in  the  alphabetical  table,  and  in  the  passage 
from  Cicero  which  Bacon,  in  his  own  handwriting,  gave  as  an 
example  of  his  cipher  practically  applied.  I  first  give  the  letters  as 
Bacon  himself  wrote  them,  and  next  to  them  I  place  their  italic 
equivalents,  reproduced  from  the  edition  of  1662.    Then  I  give 

578 


Ec^^K^^^V  LcgatiM,  o-:fugm^. 
iiotim  f-ctdtc  pitem  pMrMt 


CIPHERS 

certain  words  from  the  Cicero  passage  as  Bacon  wrote  them,  in 
which  his  use  of  the  different  forms  is  evident;  and  I  place  above 
these  the  same  words  in  printed  itahcs,  as  the  edition  of  1662 
presents  them  to  us.  The  differences  between  some  of  the  other 
letters  are  as  plain  as  those  between  the  "g's''  and  "p's,"  and 
show  plainly  the  intentional  use  of  tw^o  forms  though  the  printers 
have  made  many  blunders.  In  the  beautiful  edition  of  1694  the 
whole  is  much  plainer. 

I  do  not  consider  this  matter  of  much  importance  myself;  but 
as  a  scholar  like  Father  Thurston  lays  so  much  stress  on  his  own 
contention,  I  have  thought  fit  to  call  attention  to  and  expose  his 
error,  as  an  example  of  the  kind  of  arguments  to  which  orthodox 
Shakespearians,  of  the  most  cultivated  kind,  will  resort,  in  order 
to  bring  Baconian  heretics  to  the  stake. 

Mr.  Mallock  gives  us  a  curious  example  of  another  bilit- 
eral  cipher  antedating  Bacon's :  — 

As  I  have  said  already,  one  of  the  most  frequent  of  the  a  priori 
objections  which  critics  have  raised  to  Mrs.  Gallup's  theory  rests 
on  the  alleged  difficulty  of  printing  it,  and  the  extreme  unlikeli- 
hood that  the  printers  of  Bacon's  time  would  have  had  the  means 
of  executing  so  difficult  a  piece  of  work.  Now,  as  far  as  the  mere 
use  of  two  founts  of  italic  is  concerned,  this  difficulty  is  altogether 
imaginery.  A  bi-literal  cipher  might  be  printed  with  perfect  ease, 
and  without  the  compositor  being  in  any  way  admitted  into  the 
secret. 

And  calling  attention  to  Porta's  book  already  mentioned,  in 
which  appears  a  curious  cipher,  he  says  that  Bacon's  device 
"was  of  a  kind  neither  inapplicable  nor  even  strange  to  the 
printing  and  to  the  printers  of  the  time." 

Mr.  Mallock's  critical  study  of  the  biliteral  cipher, 
should  satisfy  skeptics  of  its  existence  in  the  "Shakespeare" 
Works. 

The  internal  evidence  of  its  truth,  however,  cannot  fail  to 
impress  itself  upon  the  mind.  A  dominant  note  is  heard  con- 
tinually,  finding  an  unexpected  echo  in  every  theme ;  varied, 
yet  ever  pathetically  insistent  —  the  strange  story  of  Bacon's 
birth.  The  world  must  not  fail  to  hear  of  this  secret  for  lack  of 

S79 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

repetition,  however  monotonous  it  may  sound.  It  was  a  secret 
of  vital  import  to  a  young  and  ambitious  man,  but  one  which 
to  whisper  abroad  would  mean  death  sure  and  swift ;  and  so 
it  is  repeated  with  what  may  seem  undignified  iteration.  No 
fabricator  of  a  plausible  fiction  would  spring  this  Jack-in-the- 
box  so  continually  upon  a  reader.  Again  some  of  the  expres- 
sions in  the  cipher  revelations  regarding  the  literary  work  of 
their  author  might  sound  like  vanity ;  but  when  we  consider 
this  man,  conscious  of  his  intellectual  superiority  to  those 
about  him,  such  expressions  hardly  trouble  us;  they  become 
almost  impersonal. 

We  have  given  this  extended  review  of  Mr.  Mallock's  work 
because  of  its  importance  to  our  subject.  It  is  almost  our 
precise  experience  in  studying  the  cipher.  His  example  of 
magnifying  the  letters  in  the  different  fonts  of  type  has  re- 
cently been  followed  by  Mrs.  Fiske,  whose  sumptuous  work 
contains  the  alphabets  sufficiently  enlarged  to  make  many  of 
their  differences  plain  to  ordinary  vision.  The  author  says  in 
her  Preface :  — 

When  Francis  Bacon's  "Cipher  Story"  was  first  brought  to 
my  attention,  I  spent  much  time  in  endeavoring  to  work  out 
the  cipher,  but  without  success.  Later,  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
meet  Mrs.  Gallup,  and  have  had  the  privilege  of  receiving  in- 
struction from  her  in  deciphering.  Believing  that  what  I  have 
learned  will  be  interesting  to  many,  I  have  endeavored  to  show 
in  this  book  in  as  simple  a  manner  as  possible  the  laborious  way 
in  which  the  hidden  message  is  brought  to  light. 

In  order  to  make  this  book  helpful  to  those  who  wish  to  de- 
cipher the  bi-literal,  I  have  also  collected  together  examples  from 
several  books  showing  different  italic  alphabets.  All  those  books 
contain  cipher  messages,  and  all  were  printed  in  the  different 
years,  and  in  different  alphabets.  These  italic  letters  are  the 
shapes  and  sizes  used  generally  in  the  books  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  to  conceal  the  cipher  messages.  Besides 
these  there  are  several  sizes  of  Roman  letters  in  facsimile  which 
are  also  described.^ 

^  Gertrude  Horsford  Fisk,  Studies  in  the  Bi-Literal  Cipher  of  Francis  Bacon. 
Boston,  1913. 

580 


CIPHERS 

This  book  is  an  important  contribution  to  cipher  literature 
which  promises  to  play  a  considerable  part  in  the  future  con- 
sideration of  the  greatest  of  literary  problems.  Of  course, 
when  fully  elucidated  it  will  solve  it  beyond  question ;  though 
without  it,  as  we  have  said  before,  the  proofs  of  Bacon's 
authorship  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  which  we  have  here 
presented,  should  be  ample  to  satisfy  an  unprejudiced  mind. 

Unfortunately  for  the  biliteral  cipher  it  was  placed  in  the 
hands  of  a  committee  to  examine  and  pass  upon  its  validity. 
The  work  fell  principally  upon  Mr.  George  C.  Bompas,  one 
well  fitted  for  the  undertaking,  and  of  undoubted  integrity, 
but  who  had  strongly  expressed  his  opinion  against  it.  Mr. 
Bompas  pursued  his  task  amid  other  distracting  affairs,  and 
made  an  adverse  report  which  was  published.  His  death  pre- 
vented a  revision  of  his  work,  and  it  has  been  accepted  by 
many  Baconians  as  a  correct  statement  of  the  case.  The  very 
conditions  under  which  Mr.  Bompas  undertook  his  task  were 
sure  to  result  in  failure.  The  writer  began  in  the  same  manner. 
He  had  examined  the  two  fonts  of  letters  in  the  "De  Aug- 
mentis,''  made  by  Bacon  to  illustrate  his  method,  and  ex- 
pected to  find  in  the  Folio  the  same,  or  approximately  the 
same,  marked  differences  which  he  found  in  Bacon's  alphabets. 
When,  however,  he  examined  the  First  Folio,  and  endeavored 
to  find,  in  the  poems  of  Digges  and  others,  the  deciphered  mes- 
sages which  he  was  told  they  concealed,  he  was  disappointed. 
He  took  a  magnifying  glass  and  studied  the  letters  and  was 
disgusted.  He  saw  differences  in  a  few  letters,  but  he  knew 
that  the  old  printers  sometimes  used  several  fonts  of  type  in 
their  work;  that  their  ink  was  thicker  at  one  time  than  at  an- 
other, and  their  registering  imperfect ;  so  he  impatiently  dropt 
the  task.  After  reading  the  cipher  revelations  he  gradually 
became  convinced  that  they  could  not  be  fabrications,  and 
wrote  Mrs.  Gallup  stating  that  he  could  make  nothing  out  of 
the  cipher,  and  propounding  various  questions,  some  of  which 
he  now  sees  were  hardly  worthy  of  a  reply.  Mrs.  Gallup,  how- 

S8i 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

ever,  answered  them  so  frankly  and  lucidly,  that  he  again  took 
up  the  study  of  the  cipher,  and  learned  a  number  of  important 
truths;  for  instance,  —  there  are  numerous  errors  in  the 
cipher  as  there  are  in  the  text;  these  errors  require  similar 
emendations ;  an  a  font  is  sometimes  found  in  the  place  of  a  ^ 
font  letter,  which  is  confusing;  words  in  the  cipher  are  abbre- 
viated ;  bad  registering  is  another  troublesome  obstacle.  The 
"cipher  story"  now  compressed  into  a  single  volume  was 
written  at  different  periods  during  more  than  forty  years  of 
its  author's  life,  and  scattered  through  many  volumes,  there- 
fore could  not  always  be  printed  in  the  same  form  of  type ; 
besides,  the  author  to  avoid  discovery  sometimes  thought  it 
necessary  to  mystify  a  decipherer.  Added  to  this  we  are  doubt- 
ful if  any  man  past  middle  age  has  a  sufficiently  keen  vision  to 
become  a  successful  decipherer.  To  become  expert  requires 
keen  sight,  close  application,  as  long  practice  as  to  learn 
Greek  or  Hebrew,  and  enthusiasm  sufficient  to  preserve  inter- 
est in  the  work.  Why  should  we  wonder,  then,  that  Mr.  Bom- 
pas  failed  in  his  desultory  work?  Yet  even  Baconians,  not 
being  able  to  read  the  cipher  offhand,  or  with  a  superficial 
study  of  it,  cast  it  aside  as  unworthy  of  attention.  After  our 
experience  with  the  biliteral  cipher  we  frankly  admit  that 
there  are  a  number  of  letters  which  we  cannot  yet  properly 
place  and  never  expect  to ;  but  though  we  know  Mrs.  Gallup 
only  through  a  long-distance  correspondence,  we  are  con- 
vinced that,  by  years  of  enthusiastic  study  of  her  favorite 
subject,  she  has  become  sufficiently  expert  to  read  anything 
submitted  to  her  which  contains  the  biliteral  cipher,  however 
obscure  it  may  be.  The  two  tests  to  which  we  have  subjected 
her,  made  as  difficult  as  we  could  make  them,  we  think  war- 
rant us  in  this  opinion.  Had  Mr.  Bompas  undertaken  to  ac- 
quire proficiency  in  a  difficult  language,  he  would  never  have 
expected  to  accomplish  his  purpose  unaided  by  a  competent 
teacher.  Here  is  the  crux  of  the  matter.  He  should  have  had 
Mrs.  Gallup  to  explain  difficulties  when  encountered.  In  one 

582 


CIPHERS 

instance,  Mr.  Bompas  speaks  of  the  sequence  of  the  introduc- 
tory poems,  etc.,  varying  in  different  copies  of  the  First  Folio. 
Each  was  a  separate  part  of  the  cipher  message,  concluded 
with  a  signature  of  Bacon's  name  or  title.  The  order  of  ar- 
rangement could  make  no  difference.  Mr.  Bompas  made  his 
notes  upon  "Henry  VH.''  A  copy  of  Mrs.  Gallup's  entire 
work  upon  this  book  was  sent  to  the  Bacon  Society,  one  to 
Mr.  Mallock,  and  one  to  her  London  publishers.  The  work 
speaks  for  itself. 

A  vast  field  of  labor,  however,  still  lies  before  students  of  the 
subject.  A  Bacon  concordance  similar  to  the  truly  monumen- 
tal work  of  Mary  Cowden  Clarke  is  a  necessity.  Students  also 
should  be  supplied  with  separate  plays,  printed  in  the  type  of 
the  original  Folio,  illustrated  with  examples  to  guide  them  in 
the  work  of  deciphering. 

Mrs.  Gallup  seems  alone  qualified  to  supervise  such  an  un- 
dertaking; indeed,  she  owes  it  to  herself  to  make  her  work 
available  to  students  and  so  plain  that  no  one  may  reason- 
ably doubt  it.  To  all  the  works  in  which  the  cipher  occurs, 
the  various  guides  should  be  given,  and  in  those  in  which  the 
biliteral  is  employed,  the  obscure  letters  should  be  noted,  and 
enlarged  examples  reproduced  to  elucidate  them.  This  might 
disarm  opposition. 

THE  "argenis" 

Before  dismissing  this  branch  of  our  subject,  we  venture  to 
express  the  opinion  that  the  cumulative  evidence  that  Francis 
Bacon  was  the  author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works  is  to 
reach  its  culmination  in  the  biliteral  cipher,  for  the  disclosures 
made  by  it  are  constantly  finding  confirmation.  Other  works 
besides  those  attributed  to  Spenser,  Peele,  Greene,  Marlowe, 
and  Burton  are  being  brought  to  light,  and  excellent  evidence 
produced,  that  he  was  interested  directly  or  indirectly  in  their 
authorship.  Canon  Begley  has  devoted  himself  to  a  study  of 
several  puzzling  works  of  Bacon's  day,  his  object  being  to 

583 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

identify  him  with  their  authorship.  His  treatment  of  the  "Arte 
of  English  Poesie,"  published  anonymously  in  1589,  which 
has  been  accredited  to  both  George  and  Richard  Puttenham, 
neither  of  whom,  he  shows,  could  by  any  possibility  have  been 
its  author,  is  a  splendid  piece  of  literary  criticism.^  While  we 
consider  it  worthy  of  all  the  space  requisite  to  here  set  forth 
his  acute  arguments,  space  forbids.  With  respect,  however,  to 
John  Barclay's  "' Argenis,''  we  deem  an  exposition  of  it  neces- 
sary to  the  proper  treatment  of  our  subject,  since  it  so  re- 
markably confirms  the  secret  of  Bacon's  birth  as  related  in  the 
cipher  story.  The  "Argenis"  was  first  published  in  Paris  in 
162 1  under  the  name  of  John  Barclay,  an  author  of  some  re- 
pute, who,  it  will  be  remembered,  appears  as  one  of  the  Coun- 
cillors in  the  Great  Assizes  at  the  head  of  which  was  Bacon. 
In  1629  it  was  published  in  an  English  translation  by  Sir 
Robert  Le  Grys,  Knight.  This  work  has  been  ably  treated  by 
Mr.  Cunningham  to  whoseworkwe  direct  attention.^  We  shall 
here  consider  an  earlier  version  which  purports  to  have  been 
translated  from  a  Latin  version  of  1622  by  "Kingsmill-Long." 
Ben  Jonson,  two  years  before,  it  is  said,  by  request  of  King 
James,  had  entered  for  publication  a  translation  of  the  "  Ar- 
genis."  This  was  in  the  busy  year  of  the  "Shakespeare"  and 
Bacon  Folios,  which  were  driven  through  the  press  with  fever- 
ish haste,  for  Bacon  was  anxious  to  get  the  works  he  had 
already  written,  and  those  he  was  writing,  printed,  as  he  felt 
that  he  was  nearing  his  end.  We  know  now  that  Jonson  had  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  the  Folio,  and  was  helping  Bacon  with 
other  work  which  may  have  delayed  the  publishing  of  his  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Argenis."  What  finally  became  of  it  we  are  not 
informed;  hence,  writers  upon  the  subject  have  supposed  that 
it  was  destroyed.  We  do  not  agree  with  this  opinion,  and  be- 
lieve that  the  edition  of  1625  under  the  name  of  Kingsmill 
Long,  was  this  translation.  There  are  several  reasons  for  this 

*  Rev.  Walter  Begley,  Bacon's  Nova  Resuscitatio.   London,  1905. 

^  Granville  C.  Cunningham,  Bacon's  Secret  Disclosed^  etc.  London,  191 1. 

584 


CIPHERS 

belief.  First  it  would  have  been  more  than  unwise  for  an 
unknown  author,  when  a  work  was  ready  for  the  press  by  a 
man  whose  reputation  as  a  Latin  scholar  was  so  well  known 
as  Jonson's,  to  translate  and  publish  the  same  work  in  compe- 
tition with  him.  Then  there  are  reasons  why  the  translation  of 
Jonson  "stayed  at  the  press."  James,  who  was  an  over-timid 
man,  after  acquainting  himself  more  fully  with  its  character, 
may  have  reconsidered  his  approval  of  a  work  containing 
not  only  a  dangerous  state  secret,  but  sentiments  at  variance 
with  his  own.  Jonson  himself,  too,  who  was  then  at  the 
height  of  his  fame,  may  well  have  hesitated  to  publish  it,  loyal 
as  he  was  to  Bacon  who  undoubtedly  had  a  hand  in  the  mat- 
ter, for  not  only  was  he  personally  interested  in  it  as  a  leading 
actor,  but  must  have  known  Barclay,  who  had  lived  in  London 
for  ten  years,  being  one  of  that  little  coterie  of  writers  in 
which  Bacon  was  so  prominent.  Did  Jonson's  work  have  a  key 
to  its  contents  ?  It  would  seem  probable,  as  such  a  key  would 
have  greatly  helped  the  sale  of  the  book,  and  at  this  time  we 
may  well  suppose  would  have  been  agreeable  to  Bacon,  and 
quite  disagreeable  to  James  and  "  Steenie."  There  was  a  call, 
however,  for  the  "Argenis,"  and  in  1625  it  was  published  in 
folio  under  the  name  of  "Kingsmill  Long,"  without  a  key, 
which  rendered  it  innocuous.  This  seems  to  be  a  fair  explana- 
tion of  the  case,  as  we  think  will  more  clearly  appear  as  we 
study  the  book. 

A  key,  however,  was  wanted,  and  in  1629,  James  and  Bacon 
both  being  dead,  the  translation  by  Le  Grys  was  published  in 
quarto,  this  time  with  a  brief  key,  sufficient,  however,  for  any 
one  who  cared  to  use  it.  We  are  told  by  the  translator  that  it 
was  "commanded"  by  the  King,  and  he  apologizes  for  errors, 
"and  would  have  reformed  some  things  in  it,  if  his  Majesty 
had  not  so  much  hastened  the  publishing  of  it."  We  may  well 
ask  why  Charles  should  thus  interest  himself  in  Barclay's 
book.  Evidently  it  was  because  of  the  key.  He  was  a  young 
man,  quite  unlike  his  father,  and  knowing  that  the  story  of 

585 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Bacon's  birth  could  do  no  harm  at  that  time,  and  reminiscent 
of  the  harsh  treatment  of  his  grandmother,  the  Queen  of 
Scots,  by  the  "Virgin"  Queen*  might  well  have  cherished  an 
unholy  delight  in  the  revelation  of  her  enemy's  secret  history, 
as  not  only  a  partial  offset  to  that  of  his  ancestress,  but  also  a 
graceful  offering  to  her  manes. 

The  second  edition  of  the  "Long"  translation  which  we  are 
considering  was  published  in  quarto,  "Beautified  with  Pic- 
tures, Together  with  a  Key  Praefixed  to  unlock  the  whole 
story."  This  key  goes  into  minute  details,  crowded  into 
twenty-seven  closely  printed  pages,  and  bears  Bacon's  famil- 
iar head-piece,  the  light  and  dark  A.  The  title-page  shows 
Henry  IV  of  France  (Poliarchus)  and  Marguerite  of  Valois 
(Argenis)  standing  upon  opposite  pedestals  before  pillars  sup- 
porting an  open  pediment,  in  the  center  of  which  is  seated  a 
veiled  female  represented,  after  the  delicate  manner  of  the 
time,  as  enceinte,  holding  aloft  in  her  right  hand  a  heart,  sym- 
bol of  love.  It  is  from  our  own  copy  of  the  edition  of  1636  that 
we  shall  quote.  First,  however,  let  us  say  that  the  "Argenis" 
is  to  the  modern  reader  a  confusing  tangle  of  events,  impossi- 
ble to  unravel  without  a  key,  though  Cowper  flatly  contradicts 
us  by  saying  that  it  is  "  free  from  all  entanglement  and  confu- 
sion. The  style,  too,  appears  to  me  to  be  such  as  not  to  dishon- 
our Tacitus  himself";  and  Hallam, — "His  object  seems  in 
great  measure  to  have  been  the  discussion  of  political  ques- 
tions in  feigned  dialogue."  In  this  Hallam  is  correct,  but  fails 
to  comprehend  the  bearing  of  these  "discussions"  upon  Eliza- 
bethan history.  Had  the  "Argenis"  been  published  in  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  those  who  had  a  hand  in  it  would  have  had  a  free 
ride  to  Tyburn  or  the  "Bloody  Tower." 

In  "The  Epistle  Dedicatorie"  we  are  at  once  introduced  to 
Marguerite  of  Valois  and  Henry  IV  in  these  words:  — 

When  first  I  viewed  the  Faire  and  Princely  Argenis,  and  her 
Royall  Lover  Poliarchus,  in  a  curious  Latine  Habit,  I  was  taken 
(as,  I  thinke,  all  other  men  are)  both  with  admiration  and  delight; 

586 


CIPHERS 

there  being  both  varlete  to  please  the  minde,  and  Learning  to 
embetter  the  Judgement. 

We  now  come  to  the  key,  and  seek  for  what  it  discloses,  a 
rather  troublesome  matter  since  its  author  cunningly  dis- 
cusses pros  and  cons  respecting  the  identity  of  the  persons 
who  are  masquerading  under  fanciful  Greek  names,  before  he 
discloses  it  to  us  in  this  way:  — 

That  by  Hyanisbe  is  not  to  be  understood  Queene  Margaret, 
sister  to  Henry  the  third,  and  wife  to  Henry  the  fourth,  from 
whom  she  was  afterwards  divorced;  but  Elizabeth,  Queene  of 
England. 

Thus  we  are  plainly  informed  that  by  Hyanisbe  is  meant 
Queen  Elizabeth.  We  shall  find,  however,  as  we  pursue  the 
narrative,  that  the  author,  Nicopompus,  intended  to  so  mix 
events  as  to  prevent  the  reader  from  understanding  the  story. 
This  he  himself  tells  us  in  these  words :  — 

I  will  circumvent  them  unawares,  with  such  delightfull  cir- 
cumstances, as  even  themselves  shall  be  pleased,  in  being  taxed 
under  strange  names.  .   .   . 

I  will  compile  some  stately  Fable,  in  manner  of  a  Historic; 
in  it,  will  I  fold  up  strange  events;  and  mingle  together  Armes, 
Marriages,  Bloodshed,  Mirth,  with  many  and  various  successes. 
The  Readers  will  be  delighted  with  the  vanities  there  shewne 
incident  to  mortall  men;  and  I  shall  have  them  more  ready  to 
reade  me,  when  they  shall  not  find  me  severe,  or  giving  precepts. 
I  will  feed  their  minds  with  divers  contemplations,  and  as  it  were, 
with  a  Map  of  places.  Then  will  I  with  the  shew  of  danger  stirre 
uppittie,  feare,  and  horrour;  and  by  and  by  cheere  up  all  doubts, 
and  graciously  allay  the  tempests.  Whom  I  please,  I  will  deliver, 
and  whom  I  please,  give  up  to  the  Fates.  I  know  the  disposition 
of  our  Countrei-men:  because  I  seeme  to  tell  them  Tales,  I  shall 
have  them  all:  they  will  love  my  Booke  above  any  Stage-Play, 
or  Spectacle  on  the  Theatre.  So  first,  bringing  them  in  love  with 
the  potion,  I  will  after  put  in  wholsome  hearbes:  I  will  figure 
vices  and  vertues;  and  each  of  them  shall  have  his  reward.  While 
they  reade,  while  they  are  affected  with  anger  or  favour,  as  it 
were  against  strangers,  they  shall  meet  with  themselves;  and 
find  in  the  glasse  held  before  them,  the  shew  and  merit  of  their 

587 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

owne  fame.  It  will  perchance  make  them  ashamed  longer  to  play 
those  parts  upon  the  Stage  of  this  life  for  which  they  must  confesse 
themselves  justly  taxed  in  a  fable.  And  that  they  may  not  say, 
they  are  traduced;  no  mans  Character  shall  be  simply  set  downe: 
I  shall  find  many  things  to  conceale  them,  which  would  not  well 
agree  with  them,  if  they  were  made  known.  For,  I,  that  bind 
not  my  self  religiously  to  the  writing  of  a  true  History,  may  take 
this  liberty.  So  shall  the  vices,  not  the  men,  be  struck;  neither 
can  any  man  take  exceptions,  for  such  as  shal  with  a  most  shame- 
full  confession  discover  his  own  naughtinesse.  Besides,  I  will 
have  here  and  there  imaginary  names  to  signifie  several  vices 
and  vertues,  so  that  he  may  be  as  much  deceived,  that  would 
draw  all  in  my  writing,  as  he  that  would  nothing,  to  the  truth 
of  any  late  or  present  passage  of  State. 

After  reading  this  we  shall  be  prepared  to  find  the  author 
introducing  into  his  narrative,  anomalies,  anachronisms,  con- 
fusing incidents,  and  cunning  devices  of  all  kinds,  to  prevent 
the  uninitiated  from  separating  truth  from  fiction.  We  have 
already  learned  from  the  key  that  Argenis  means  Margaret  of 
Valois;  Poliarchus,  her  consort,  Henry  IV,  from  whom  she 
was  divorced ;  and  Hyanisbe,  Queen  Elizabeth.  We  shall  find 
as  we  proceed  that  Mauritania  signifies  England ;  the  Moors, 
EngHshmen;  Sicily,  France;  Gallia,  Navarre;  Radirobanes, 
Philip  II;  Hyempsal,  Queen  Elizabeth's  son  when  at  home; 
but  when  traveling  abroad,  incognito,  Archombrotus ;  and 
Syphax,  "the  Chiefeman"  in  England  whom  she  married. 
This  is  the  description  of  England :  — 

Now  were  they  come  within  view,  not  onely  of  Africa,^  but  also 
of  Lixa,  the  chiefe  Citie  of  Mauritania.  .  .  .  The  River,  also 
called  Lixa  so  gentle  mingled  it  selfe  with  the  unresisting  Sea, 
that  where  both  the  Waters  met,  neither  the  noise  nor  the  foame 
made  any  difference,  but  onely  their  colour.  .  .  .  The  Citie  was 
great;  and  by  the  traffique  of  Merchants,  wealthie  and  populous. 
.  .  .  On  your  right  hand,  as  you  passe  from  the  shore  to  the  Citie, 
was  a  Hill,  the  pleasantest  in  all  Africa;  and  on  the  same,  a  faire 
Countrey  House,  which  they  called  the  Queenes  Mannour.  There, 

^  Both  Africa  and  Mauritania  are  used  to  signify  England ;  one  it  would  seem 
in  the  sense  of  Great  Britain,  the  other  of  England,  as  still  used. 

588 


CIPHERS 

when  she  was  oppressed  with  cares,  would  she  usually  sojourne; 
and  after  some  refreshment,  by  solitude  taken  in  turnes,  to  re- 
turne  more  chearfully  to  the  trouble  and  broyle  of  business.^ 

We  are  told  that  Hyanisbe 

had  succeeded  her  Brother  Juha  (Edward  VI.)  three  and  twentie 
yeeres  agoe  in  the  Kingdome:  that  before  she  was  Queene,  shee 
was  married  to  one  Syphax,  the  chiefe  man  in  Mauritania,  next  to 
the  King,  who  dying  of  a  sicknesse,  when  King  Juha  dyed,  had 
left  her  with  childe:  that  the  Queene  not  long  after  was  delivered 
of  a  Sonne,  whom  she  called  Hyempsal,  who,  by  the  favour  of  the 
gods,  had  by  his  owne  towardlinesse  farre  out-gone  even  the 
wishes  of  his  Subjects:  but  that  now  in  quest  of  honour  amongst 
strangers,  he  was  in  private  habit  travelled,  none,  but  the  Queene, 
knowing  into  what  Countrie.^ 

The  introduction  of  Juba  and  the  death  of  Syphax  at  the 
same  time  was  intended  to  confuse  the  narrative. 

The  defeat  of  the  Armada  is  thus  clearly  related  in  the 
key:  — 

The  overthrow  of  Radirobanes  in  Africk,  when  he  went  to 
invade  the  Kingdome  of  Hyanisbe,  doth  note  that  notable  over- 
throw of  that  huge  and  monstrous  Spanish  Armado;  which  be- 
ing disperst  and  scattered,  he  was  never,  after  that,  able  to  make 
any  great  and  dangerous  designe  neither  against  France  nor 
England. 

This  is  the  account  of  the  meeting  of  Argenis  (Margaret  of 
Valois)  by  Archombrotus  (the  Queen's  son  incognito).  It  is 
headed  "Archombrotus  falleth  in  love  with  Argenis  " : — 

The  evening  came  on,  and  Archombrotus,  as  he  was  wont, 
went  into  the  Kings  garden.  There,  as  hee  was  walking  alone, 
among  the  rankes  of  Trees,  he  fell  into  remembrance  of  that  night, 
when  Poliarchus  and  hee  were  guests  at  Timoclea's  house.  Among 
other  things,  it  came  to  his  minde,  how  Poliarchus  changed  his 
lookes  and  speech,  being  questioned  any  thing  of  Argenis.  For, 
when  Archombrotus  had  drawne  that  to  a  signe  of  love,  pres- 
ently, with  the  weight  of  ensuing  thoughts,  he  forgets  it;  and  so 
much  the  easier  because  he  did  not  imagine  it  mutuall  love,  but 

*  Argents y  p.  174.  *  Ihid.^  p.  183. 

589 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

rather  a  youthfull  amorousnesse  in  Poliarchus.  —  What  could  be 
thought  more  excellent  than  Argenis  ?  Who  had  ever  attained  to 
such  good  qualities,  so  great  parents,  so  many  vertues?  If  shee 
had  no  prerogative  of  birth,  but  choice  were  to  be  made  amongst 
all  the  Virgins,  none  before  Argenis  should  be  called  to  be  Queene. 
Her  wisdome,  her  modestie,  her  language  did  excell  all  of  her 
Sexe :  and  her  forme  more  than  mortall.  After  this,  Archombro- 
tus  returnes  to  thinking  of  himselfe;  neither  did  hee  conjecture  his 
owne  birth  unworthy  of  so  great  hopes;  a  ready  fewell  (no  doubt) 
to  his  new  fires:  and  this,  at  first,  not  as  thinking  to  love,  but  as 
having  in  his  head  some  idle,  yet  not  unlikely  fancies.  By  little 
and  little  hee  was  caught,  and  with  a  kinde  of  doubtfuU  pleasure 
held  close  to  these  Chimerae's;  not  knowing,  that  if  hee  would 
conquer  and  be  free,  hee  had  need  of  all  his  fortitude  against 
these  first  motions  of  love:  The  dearer  hee  held  Argenis,  abated  so 
much  of  his  friendship,  which  had  bound  him  to  Poliarchus;  first, 
assaulted  by  Envie;  next,  by  Jealousie.  So  hee  goes  out  of  the 
Garden  love-sicke,  and  captive,  that  a  little  before  entred  free 
and  happie.  It  was  an  addition  to  his  misery,  to  asswage  this 
tempest  by  solitarinesse;  hee  supped  alone:  For,  when  in  silence 
and  solitude,  nothing  but  love  presented  it  selfe  to  his  thoughts, 
he  yeelded  himselfe  to  those  cares,  which  within  few  dayes  did 
exceedingly  torment  the  young  Lover,  with  never  till  now  experi- 
enced maladies.^ 

But  Archombrotus  is  to  be  disappointed  in  his  love,  since 
Argenis  is  bound  to  Poliarchus  who  has  been  long  absent. 
Anxious  for  his  return  she  would  persuade  Archombrotus  to 
go  in  search  of  him.  She  thus  discusses  her  plan  with  her 
friend  Selenissa  (Catherine  de  Medici) :  — 

I  am  not  the  first,  O  Selenissa,  which  have  loved  unfortunately. 
Why  doe  wee  yeeld  to  fortune?  Death  shall  be  the  last  remedie, 
which  I  can  never  be  hinderd  from.  May  I  not  goe  my  selfe,  chang- 
ing my  habit,  in  search  of  Poliarchus?  Alas,  that  I  dare  not  be  so 
bold,  void  of  cunning,  and  having  no  face  to  frame  a  Lye.  And 
perhaps  also  (but  that  is  my  least  feare)  I  might  dye  in  the 
labour  of  travell.  Besides,  thou  couldst  not  follow  me,  nor  staye 
behinde,  without  being  called  into  danger,  if  I  should  slip  away 
without  the  Kings  privitie.  Hearke,  what  I  take  to  be  the  best 
course.    Archombrotus,  you  know,  is  a  most  especiall  friend  of 

^  Argents,  p.  i^o  et  seq. 

S9Q 


CIPHERS 

Pollarchus;  hee  defended  him,  in  his  absence  to  the  King,  and 
was  the  chiefe  perswader,  to  call  him  backe:  I  shall  easily  per- 
swade  him  to  seeke  out  Poliarchus,  and  bring  him  back  to  Sicily 
(France) :  yet  hee  shall  not  know  what  the  cause  is,  I  desire  to 
see  him;  somewhat  else  may  be  devised:  Neither  will  our  faction 
want  the  colour  of  truth,  when  both  of  us  shall  enforce  his  be- 
liefe.  Selenissa  praysed  her  wit:  whether  the  cunning  did  please 
her,  or  being  wearie,  desired  some  respit  from  griefe  to  her  selfe 
and  Argenis,  for  the  rest  of  the  night:  which  Argenis  having  spent 
without  sleepe,  calls  for  her  Chamberlaine;  — and  commanded 
him  openly,  to  aske  of  Archombrotus,  if  that  night  had  any  thing 
eased  him  of  his  wounds  (for  hee  had  received  many,  but  they 
were  light;)  for  shee  studied  how  to  flatter  him,  having  dangerous 
imployment  for  so  deserving  a  Gentleman. 

Archombrotus,  as  if  hee  had  been  caught  up  into  Heaven,  and 
almost  confident  that  hee  was  beloved,  answered  her  Chamber- 
laine: If  Meleander  (Henry  III)  and  Argenis  were  well,  (for  upon 
their  safetie  hee  wholly  depended)  hee  himselfe  was  well  enough. 
O  the  mindes  of  men!  for  the  most  part  fearing  their  delights, 
and  loving  their  miseries.  The  Youngman,  now  full  of  joy,  and 
ignorant  of  Argenis  device,  tyred  his  minde  with  vaine  thoughts, 
and  stood  by  her  Chamber  doore,  to  present  his  service,  as  shee 
came  out.  Neither  came  shee  unwelcome;  and  all  the  way  talking 
with  him,  as  shee  was  going  to  Meleander,  yet  said  shee  nothing 
of  Poliarchus ;  for,  as  yet  the  business  was  not  ripe,  and  secrecie 
was  requisit  for  that  discourse.^ 

The  book  ends  with  the  return  of  Archombrotus,  or  Hyemp- 
sal,  where  he  is  received  into  the  favor  of  EHzabeth  his  mother, 
and  was  present  at  the  destruction  of  the  Armada.  In  the 
cipher  story  Bacon  tells  us  that  he  was  present,  which  is  not 
improbable,  but  from  this  point  the  author  gives  us  an  exhibi- 
tion of  the  wildest  fancies.  He  had  disclosed  the  most  impor- 
tant incidents  in  Bacon's  life  as  related  in  the  cipher  story,  — 
Elizabeth's  marriage  to  "Syphax"  (Leicester),  "a  man  of 
most  eminent  qualitie,"  according  to  Le  Grys;  the  birth  of  a 
son ;  his  journey  to  France,  where  he  fell  in  love  with  Mar- 
guerite of  Valois,  a  passion  which  dominated  his  life.  That 
Bacon  had  a  hand  in  this  there  can  be  httle  doubt,  for  in 

^  Argents,  p.  281  et  seq. 

S9I 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

"The  Epistle  Dedicatorie,"  the  hand  of  which  is  Long  s,  the 
voice  is  his.   The  book  contains  much  uncensored  history. 

Having  placed  the  "Argenis"  on  file  as  an  exhibit  in  the 
claim  of  the  Queen's  child  reared  by  Lady  Bacon,  we  offer 
one  of  equal  importance  in  that  of  the  child  reared  by  Lady 
Devereux. 

ROBERT  DEVEREUX,  EARL  OF  ESSEX 

The  layman  whose  faith  has  been  shaped  by  the  stately 
histories  of  the  past  will,  of  course,  be  disturbed  at  any  at- 
tempt to  show  that  the  authority  which  he  has  so  long  revered 
may  be  deficient ;  but  the  sources  accessible  to  the  historian  of 
a  century  or  so  ago  were  meager,  and  since  his  day  private  and 
public  correspondence,  state  papers  and  documentary  mate- 
rials of  many  kinds  have  been  drawn  from  their  crypts  and  cof- 
fers, and  published  or  docketed  for  use.  So  it  comes  about 
that  the  student,  finding  that  much  of  the  popular  history  of 
the  past  was  based  upon  books  written  within  the  purlieus 
of  despotic  governments,  reflecting  the  interests  of  the  Court, 
and  more  or  less  inspired  by  those  in  power,  seeks  document- 
ary evidence  with  which  to  test  its  statements. 

Even  now  we  have  hardly  escaped  from  such  influences.  It 
was  the  knowledge  of  this  that  prompted  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson  to  declare,  in  an  address  before  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  that  our  histories  would  have  to  be  re- 
written ;  indeed,  a  book  has  been  thought  necessary  to  guide 
us  in  distinguishing  between  false  and  true  historic  evidence, 
though  we  think  it  a  futile  work,  since  a  critical  judgment 
and  not  a  rule  must  ultimately  determine  the  question.  The 
cipher  story  of  the  execution  of  Essex  prompts  us  to  exam- 
ine Camden's  and  Howell's  accounts  of  that  tragic  event,  to 
ascertain,  if  possible,  whether  there  is  anything  in  them  to 
warrant  it. 

But  first  let  us  make  a  brief  study  of  his  life  preceding  that 
event.  The  date  of  his  birth  is  said  to  have  been  November 

•      592 


ROBERT  DEVEREUX,  (ESSEX) 

From  Naunton's  Fragmenta  Regalia. 
The  added  hat  accentuated  the  resemblance  to  Dudley 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

lo,  1567,  at  Netherwood,  Herefordshire,  but  the  historian  of 
the  Devereux  family  says :  — 

Although  I  have  followed  the  general  report  of  former  writers 
in  making  Netherwood  the  birthplace  of  Robert  Earl  of  Essex, 
I  must  observe  that  it  is  more  than  doubtful,  for  the  register  of 
Thornbury,  in  which  Netherwood  Is  situated,  makes  no  men- 
tion of  the  fact.^ 

At  Chartley  where  the  family  residence  was  situated,  all  the 
children  of  Sir  Walter  Devereux  are  registered  except  Robert. 
We  are  further  informed  by  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  who  was  con- 
versant with  the  life  of  the  family,  that  Sir  Walter  did  not 
regard  him  as  a  father  would  naturally  regard  an  elder  son, 
but  "died  with  a  very  cold  conceit  of  him;  some  say  through 
the  affection  to  his  second  son,  Walter/'  ^  In  the  cipher  we  are 
told  that  Robert  was  named  for  his  father,  Robert  Dudley. 
As  it  was  more  fitting  that  the  head  of  a  house  should  bestow 
his  name  upon  the  eldest  son,  who  was  to  succeed  him,  the 
light  that  Wotton  throws  upon  Walter  Devereux's  treatment 
of  Robert  suggests  the  question.  Was  Robert  really  his  son, 
and  may  not  Walter  have  really  been  his  eldest  son  ?  If  it  is 
objected,  that  if  the  cipher  is  true  it  shows  that  Dudley  be- 
stowed his  name  upon  Essex,  though  he  was  his  second  son ; 
the  reply  to  this  is,  that  the  question  of  legitimacy  could  not  be 
successfully  raised  in  the  case  of  Essex,  while  it  might  be  in 
that  of  Francis  Bacon,  whose  constant  asseveration  that  he 
was  born  "in  holy  wedlock"  shows  that  he  was  sensitive  upon 
that  point,  as  he  possibly  had  reason  to  be. 

In  August,  1575,  Elizabeth  made  a  visit  to  Lady  Devereux, 
young  Robert  being  then  eight  years  of  age.  Sir  Walter,  grasp- 
ing and  avaricious,  was  then  absent,  and  importuning  the 
Queen  for  large  grants  of  land.  From  there  she  wrote  him  a 
letter  in  which  occur  these  pregnant  words^  "The  search  of 

^  Walter  Bourchier  Devereux,  Lives  and  Letters  of  the  Devereux  Earls  of  Essex y 
vol.  I,  p.  8.  London,  1853. 

2  The  Characters  of  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  and  George  Villiers,  Duke 
of  Buckingham,  p.  21.  Lee  Priory,  1814. 

594 


ROBERT  DUDLEY,  (LEICESTER) 

From  Naunton's  Fragmenta  Regalia. 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

your  honour  with  the  danger  of  your  breath  hath  not  been  be- 
stowed on  so  ungrateful  a  prince,  that  will  not  both  consider 
the  one  and  reward  the  other."  What  could  she  mean  by  the 
danger  of  his  breath  if  he  were  not  the  repository  of  some  great 
secret  ? 

We  are  told  that  her  interest  in  him  was  so  great  that  she 
granted  him  almost  the  entire  County  of  Antrim,  though  she 
shrewdly  made  him  a  loan  of  ten  thousand  pounds  at  ten  per 
cent  for  improvements,  which  proved  to  be  a  good  curb  to 
control  him.  But  this  did  not  satisfy  his  needs,  for  six  months 
later,  February  5,  1576,  he  wrote  in  this  imperative  manner, 
"But  Her  Majesty  is  to  resolve  for  me  quickly  for  I  am  come 
to  that  pass  as  my  land  being  entangled  to  her  no  man  will 
give  me  credit  for  any  money."  Elizabeth,  however,  was  re- 
lieved of  him  a  few  months  later,  for,  says  Camden,  "he  re- 
turned into  England,  where  openly  threatening  Leicester 
...  he  was  .  .  .  by  a  peculiar  Court-mystery  of  wound- 
ing and  over-throwing  men  by  Honours,  sent  back  into  Ireland 
with  the  insignificant  Title  of  Earl  Marshall  of  Ireland."  On 
arrival  he  was  taken  suddenly  ill,  and  died,  not  without  sus- 
picion of  poison.  "The  suspicion  was  increased  by  Leicester's 
presently  putting  away  Douglass  Sheffield,"  ^  by  whom  he 
had  a  son,  and  secretly  marrying  the  widow  of  Essex. 

The  first  recorded  presentation  of  young  Robert  Essex  to 
the  Queen  was  when  he  was  ten  years  of  age,  the  same  age  at 
which  Francis  Bacon  was  first  introduced  to  her.  On  that 
memorable  occasion,  it  will  be  remembered,  when  the  boy  was 
asked  his  age,  he  replied,  "Two  years  younger  than  Your 
Majesty's  happy  reign,"  greatly  to  the  delight  of  the  Queen. 
The  bearing  of  the  young  eagle,  Essex,  was  quite  different,  for, 
when  she  impulsively  attempted  to  kiss  him,  he  drew  back  and 
rejected  the  proffered  favor. 

Both  these  boys  had  been  trained  by  the  same  tutor,  Whit- 
gift,  but  the  one  was  as  engaging  as  Elizabeth  in  her  happy 

^  Camden,  Elizabeth,  p.  217  et  seq. 

596 


CIPHERS 

moods,  and  the  other  as  imperious  as  she  in  her  less  propitious 
ones.  When  at  Cambridge  he  seems  to  have  been  under  strict 
instructors,  for  he  complained  to  Burghley,  his  guardian,  of 
the  slenderness  of  his  wardrobe,  which  was  **  scantily  sup- 
plied." When  presented  at  Court  by  Leicester,  with  whom 
he  was  a  greater  favorite  than  Francis,  the  Queen  showed  a 
remarkable  attachment  to  him,  and  bestowed  greater  favors 
upon  him  than  upon  Ralegh,  which  created  a  lifelong  enmity 
between  the  two  young  men.  The  bravery,  rashness,  and 
kingly  bearing  of  Essex  appealed  to  Elizabeth,  and  aroused  in 
her  that  motherly  instinct  so  common  to  the  feminine  heart, 
making  her  constantly  solicitous  for  his  health  and  safety. 
As  wilful  and  capricious  as  herself,  she  bore  his  extravagant 
humors  with  strange  patience,  keeping  him  by  her  and  enter- 
taining him  with  cards  and  games  in  the  little  circle  of  her 
chosen  favorites.  On  one  occasion  she  gave  Blount,  one  of  her 
courtiers,  a  favor  to  wear  upon  his  arm,  which,  being  observed 
by  Essex,  incited  his  displeasure  which  ended  in  a  duel.  On 
another  occasion  he  boldly  accused  her  of  insulting  a  friend  to 
please  Ralegh,  and  left  her  in  anger.  The  next  day  he  was 
about  leaving  the  country  when  she  sent  Carey  to  pacify  him, 
which,  with  difficulty,  he  succeeded  in  accomplishing. 

When  in  one  of  his  fits  of  temper  he  turned  his  back  upon 
the  Queen,  she  gave  him  a  blow  upon  the  ear  which  caused  him 
so  far  to  forget  himself  as  to  clasp  his  hand  upon  his  sword,  an 
act  which  she  ever  remembered.  After  the  execution  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  he  was  so  rash  as  to  write  James  to  aid  him  in 
getting  Davison,  whom  she  had  unjustly  imprisoned  in  the 
tower,  restored  to  favor.  No  son  in  the  line  of  succession  could 
have  carried  affairs  with  a  higher  hand,  and  writers  have  often 
spoken  of  the  Queen's  patient  treatment  of  him  as  that  of  a 
mother  toward  a  headstrong  but  beloved  son.  His  house  be- 
came a  center  of  correspondence  with  foreign  courts,  which 
made  him  obnoxious  to  the  Cecils,  and  paved  the  way  to 
his  final  downfall.   So  reckless  of  consequences  was  he,  that 

S97 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

on  one  occasion,  Elizabeth  exclaimed:  "By  God's  death!  it 
were  fitting  some  one  should  take  him  down,  and  teach 
him  better  manners,  or  there  were  no  rule  with  him."  This 
brief  glimpse  of  Essex  will  make  plainer  the  reason  of  his 
ruin. 

We  realize  that  it  is  likely  to  jar  one,  who  has  adjusted  him- 
self to  a  certain  historic  perspective,  to  be  told  that  he  has  been 
regarding  things  from  a  wholly  wrong  angle.  To  learn,  for 
instance,  from  the  cipher  story,  that  Francis  Bacon  and 
Robert  Essex  were  the  sons  of  Elizabeth  Tudor  and  Robert 
Dudley,  sounds  strangely  enough,  though  we  are  prepared 
to  believe  from  evidence  that  has  come  down  to  us  that  she 
had  children  by  Dudley.  Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  if  Sir 
Nicholas  Bacon,  Pembroke,  Burghley,  and  Cecil  knew  who 
these  children  were,  and  if  the  story  is  true  they  certainly  must 
have  known,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  secret  did  not  leak  out. 
The  answer  to  this  is  evident.  It  was  a  secret  of  state  which 
they  were  bound  to  hold  sacred  by  every  dictate  of  self-inter- 
est. That  it  did  leak  out  we  know,  for  several  persons  were 
punished  for  discussing  it,  probably  many  more  than  we  know. 
The  two  to  whom  the  children  most  naturally  would  have  been 
entrusted  were  Lady  Bacon  and  the  wife  of  Walter  Devereux, 
two  of  Elizabeth's  close  friends.  This  friendship  we  know  with 
the  one  was  never  broken,  though  it  subsequently  was  with 
the  other.  At  Walter  Devereux's  death,  Burghley,  whose  wife 
was  the  sister  of  Lady  Bacon,  became  the  guardian,  and  later, 
Dudley,  the  titular  stepfather  of  Essex.  These  are  two  points 
not  unworthy  of  notice. 

But  it  will  be  said  that  when  Essex  was  on  trial,  and  his 
brother  occupied  the  anomalous  position  of  prosecuting  him  in 
behalf  of  the  Crown  for  the  crime  of  treason,  would  not  Essex, 
brave  and  bold  as  he  was,  have  been  likely  to  confound  his 
judges  with  the  declaration  that  he  was  the  Queen's  son,  and 
his  brother,  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne,  his  prosecutor? 
This  is  as  strong  as  this  objection  can  be  stated. 

598 


CIPHERS 

The  reply  is,  that  at  the  trial  he  had  no  witness  to  whom  to 
appeal.  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  Pembroke,  and  Burghley,  the 
three  to  whom  he  could  have  appealed  as  witnesses  in  his 
favor,  were  dead,  and  Bacon  says  the  evidence  of  Elizabeth's 
secret  marriage  had  been  destroyed  by  her  long  before.  He 
had  not  the  least  chance  of  a  favorable  hearing.  The  Queen 
was  old;  his  arch  enemy,  Robert  Cecil,  was  then  all-powerful; 
indeed,  the  announcement  of  his  birth  would  only  have  has- 
tened his  ruin ;  besides,  he  held  the  Queen's  ring,  if  we  are  to 
believe  the  tradition,  which  would  probably  secure  his  pardon; 
but  were  this  wanting,  had  she  not  shown  so  much  affection 
for  him  that  it  must  have  seemed  certain  that  she  would 
exercise  clemency  in  his  behalf.^  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  so  believed. 

But  it  will  be  said,  granting  this,  when  he  reached  the  scaf- 
fold, would  he  not  at  the  last  moment  have  made  the  an- 
nouncement of  his  relation  to  the  Queen,  or,  before  that 
event,  have  communicated  it  to  his  spiritual  adviser?  This 
would  seem  likely.  But  what  were  the  conditions  surrounding 
him  from  the  close  of  his  trial  to  his  execution?  Would  not  the 
crafty  Cecil,  "the  Fox,"  be  sure  to  prevent  any  declaration 
from  him  becoming  public,  for  if  Essex  were  permitted  to 
live  it  might  be  fatal  to  him.  He  was  already  plotting  for  the 
succession  of  James,  which,  if  known  by  the  Queen,  though 
she  might  be  thinking  of  it  herself,  would  have  caused  his  head 
to  "hop"  from  his  shoulders,  to  use  one  of  her  striking  expres- 
sions, for  though  this  imperious  woman  could  be  influenced 
by  an  appeal  to  her  fears  or  passions,  she  could  brook  no  inter- 
ference of  a  subject  in  the  question  of  the  succession.  Cecil 
was  at  the  crisis  of  a  dangerous  game,  and  Essex  had  small 
chance  of  being  heard,  once  the  door  of  his  dungeon  was 
closed  upon  him.  The  Queen  in  the  mean  time,  we  are  told  by 
Camden,  "wavered  in  her  Mind  concerning  him  —  and  she 
sent  her  command  by  Sir  Ed  Gary  that  he  should  not  be  exe- 
cuted." This  would  never  do;  "His  Life  would  be  the  Queen's 

599 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

destruction" ;  and  "shortly  after  she  sent  a  fresh  Command  by 
Darcy  that  he  should  be  put  to  death." 

On  the  morning  of  the  25th  of  February,  the  execution  took 
place.  This  is  the  simple  story  we  are  told  by  Camden,  but 
how  the  warrant  was  obtained  is  not  mentioned.  The  cipher 
story  informs  us  that  during  the  preceding  night  his  eyes,  at 
the  instigation  of  Cecil,  were  destroyed  by  one  of  those  mon- 
sters who  haunted  the  prisons  ready  to  commit  any  atrocity 
demanded  of  them.  While  we  know  from  the  history  of  Henry 
VI,  Richard  II,  and  others,  that  similar  horrors  occurred  in 
these  infernal  dungeons  where  cruel  men  immured  their  vic- 
tims, and  that  Cecil  may  have  been  capable  of  sanctioning 
such  a  crime,  we  are  impelled  to  impatiently  exclaim,  with  our 
Stratfordian  friends,  Impossible !  If  the  eyes  of  Essex  had  been 
destroyed  it  would  have  appeared  at  the  execution,  of  which 
we  shall  see,  according  to  Camden,  there  were  witnesses. 

The  question  for  us  to  consider,  if  the  story  of  the  royal 
parentage  of  Essex  were  true,  is.  Would  he  have  been  given  by 
Cecil  opportunity  to  make  it  public,  and  had  he  suffered  muti- 
lation as  described,  could  it  have  been  concealed  ?  To  ascer- 
tain this  we  must  know  whether  the  conditions  surrounding 
him  between  his  condemnation  and  death  would  have  per- 
mitted such  concealment  and  mutilation  ?  To  do  this  we  must 
go  afield,  outside  of  the  formal  parterres  of  history,  for  such 
stray  scraps  of  evidence  as  we  may  find,  and  bring  them  to- 
gether, which,  strangely  enough,  no  one  has  hitherto  thought 
it  worth  while  to  essay ;  for  Camden,  complaisant  old  chron- 
icler of  royalty,  has  given  a  circumstantial  account  of  the 
whole  affair,  which  carries  the  inference  that  he  was  an  eye- 
witness of  the  execution.  When  critically  examined,  however, 
we  find  that  he  is  very  careful  to  state  that  he  was  present  at 
the  trial,  but  avoids  saying  that  he  was  at  the  execution, 
which,  had  he  been,  he  certainly  would  have  done.  Camden's 
account  after  the  commitment  of  Essex  to  the  Tower  is  pre- 
cisely what  authority  would  have  sanctioned.  First  he  states 

600 


CIPHERS 

that  Essex  "  desired  that  he  might  suffer  privately  within  the 
tower."  In  his  account  of  the  execution,  however,  he  states 
that  "Thomas  Mountford  and  William  Barlow,  Doctors  of 
Divinity,  with  Ashton,  the  Minister  of  the  Church,  were  sent 
unto  him  early  in  the  morning  to  administer  Christian  Con- 
solation unto  his  Soul";  and  that  seven  noblemen  and  several 
aldermen  and  knights  were  present,  the  noblemen  sitting 
"near  unto"  the  scaffold.  Ralegh  is  said  also  to  have  "beheld 
his  Execution  out  of  the  Armoury."  ^ 

That  the  greatest  pains  were  taken  by  Cecil  to  make  it 
appear  that  Essex  insisted  upon  having  his  execution  take 
place  privately  is  evident.  Barlow,  one  of  the  discredited 
transmitters  of  the  story  of  his  last  hours,  loudly  proclaimed 
that  it  was  private  at  the  Earl's  request,  "Lest  the  acclama- 
tions of  the  citizens  should  hove  him  up."  ^ 

Oldys  is  responsible  for  publishing  the  absurd  story  that 
Essex  told  "  the  Queen  that  her  condition  was  as  crooked  as 
her  carcase."  ^  Says  Lingard,  "Many  believed  that  this  was 
the  real  cause  of  his  execution  within  the  Tower."  This  story, 
coupled  with  his  alleged  request,  was  a  convenient  method 
of  extending  this  belief;  indeed,  frequent  evidences  appear  of 
Cecil's  anxiety  to  impress  the  public  with  the  belief  that  the 
private  execution  of  Essex  was  granted  him  as  a  favor.  He 
further  says:  "There  is  indeed  something  suspicious  in  the  ear- 
nestness with  which  Cecil  instructs  Winwood  to  declare  in  the 
French  Court,  that  Essex  had  petitioned  to  die  in  private."  * 

To  justify  himself,  Cecil  called  particular  attention  to  what 
he  described  as  "the  written  confession  on  four  sheets  of  paper 
in  his  own  hand.''  If  such  a  holographic  confession  ever  ex- 
isted, it  would  have  been  preserved  most  carefully  we  may 
be  sure,  but  we  have  only  Cecil's  word  for  it. 

^  Camden,  The  History  of  Elizabeth^  etc.,  p.  621  et  seq. 

2  Birch,  vol.  11,  p.  482. 

3  William  Oldys,  The  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Ralegh^  vol.  i,  p.  329.  London, 
1829. 

*  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  619. 

601 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Referring  to  the  privacy  of  the  execution,  Jardine  remarks 

that  it  was :  — 

Inconsistent  with  his  declaration  at  his  trial;  but  the  fact  is 
rendered  suspicious  by  the  eagerness  of  the  Council  to  declare  it. 
Then  Cecil  in  his  letter  to  Winwood,  having  already  directed  the 
ambassador  respecting  the  report  he  was  to  make  of  the  Earl's 
conduct  to  the  French  King,  adds  in  a  postscript,  "You  must 
understand  that  he  was  an  exceeding  earnest  suitor  to  be  exe- 
cuted privately  in  the  Tower."  It  is  expressly  mentioned  in  all 
the  dispatches,  and  forms  a  distinct  article  in  the  paper  signed 
by  the  three  clergymen.  The  King  of  France,  however,  appears 
not  to  have  believed  the  story,  and  to  have  had  some  informa- 
tion on  the  subject  pre\dously,  for  on  Winwood's  relating  to  him 
the  circumstances  of  the  confession  of  the  Earl,  and  stating  his 
wish  for  a  private  execution,  the  King  Interrupted  him,  saying, 
"Nay  rather  the  clean  contrary,  for  he  desired  nothing  more 
than  to  die  in  public."  ^ 

The  secrecy  with  which  the  execution  was  conducted,  and 
the  methods  resorted  to  in  order  to  prevent  him  from  talking, 
attracted  attention,  and  the  '^divines"  were  sharply  criticized, 
being  called  "the  mere  tools  of  the  Government."  Ashton, 
who  seems  to  have  been  appointed  as  a  sort  of  death-watch  to 
him,  is  spoken  of  as  "base,  fearful  and  mercenary."  It  is  to 
these  men  that  we  are  indebted  for  all  that  was  made  public 
concerning  his  last  hours.  The  so-called  confession,  we  are 
told,  — 

provided  plentiful  materials  for  Proclamations,  Sermons  and 
Declarations.  The  auditors  of  what  he  said  on  the  scaffold  con- 
sisted of  such,  and  so  many  persons  only,  as  the  lieutenant  had 
instructions  to  admit  within  the  gates;  and  that  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  an  audience  picked  and  prepared  by  the  Privy 
Council.  2 

So  much  were  the  clerical  attendants  of  Essex  discredited, 
that  Ralegh  when  he  went  to  the  Tower  was  cautioned  not  to 

^  David  Jardine,  Esq.,  Criminal  Trials,  vol.  i,  p.  369  et  seq.  Boston,  1832. 
Cf.  Sir  Ralph  Winwood,  Knight,  Memorials  of  Affairs  of  State^  etc.,  vol.  11,  p. 
372.  London,  1725. 

^  Ibid. J  p.  371. 

602 


CIPHERS 

have  such  "divines"  about  him.  Of  his  appearance  at  the 
execution,  the  original  account  says :  — 

All  the  tyme  of  his  beinge  on  the  Scaffold  the  Erie  never  uttered 
worldlie  thought,  takeing  no  notice  of  anie  person  more  than 
another.^ 

Lingard  says :  — 

It  was  remarked  that  he  never  mentioned  his  wife  or  children 
or  friends. 2 

He  had  said  at  the  close  of  his  trial,  — 

Before  his  death  he  would  make  somethinge  knowen,  that 
should  be  acceptable  to  her  Majestie  in  point  of  State. ^ 

But,  says  Jardine :  — 

The  most  pressing  instructions  had  been  previously  given  to 
the  officers  and  divines  to  prevent  him  from  speaking  of  the  na- 
ture of  his  affairs,  or  of  his  associates,  and  to  confine  him  to  a 
simple  declaration  of  sorrow  for  his  treason.^ 

Essex,  after  sentence  had  been  pronounced  against  him, 
petitioned 

the  Lord  Highe  Steward  that  he  might  have  his  owne  preacher; 
it  was  answeared  that  it  was  not  so  convenient  for  him  at  that 
tyme  to  have  his  owne  Chaplein  as  another. 

His  reply  was :  — 

Yf  a  man  in  sicknes  would  not  willinglie  commit  his  bodie  to 
an  unknowne  phisitlon,  he  hoped  it  would  not  be  thought  but 
a  reasonable  request  for  him  at  that  tyme  to  have  a  preacher 
which  hath  been  acquainted  with  his  conscience. 

Finally,  however,  Ashton,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the 
preacher  he  desired,  and  the  two  others  we  have  mentioned, 
were  assigned  him.  These  men  subsequently  furnished  Cecil  a 
convenient  channel  by  which  to  reach  the  public  ear.  Particu- 

^  Stephen,  State  Trials^  vol.  in,  p.  87. 

2  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  620. 

3  H.  L.  Stephen,  State  Trials,  vol.  ni,  p.  79.   London,  1902. 

4  Jardine,  p.  374. 

603 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

larly  well  did  Barlow,  the  ablest  of  the  trio,  serve  him, 

for  — 

The  Sunday  after  Essex's  death,  he  preached  at  St.  Paul's  Cross, 
following  Cecil's  instructions  very  precisely  in  publishing  Essex's 
confession.  He  subsequently  received  abundant  preferment, 
culminating  in  the  bishopric,  first  of  Rochester  and  then  of 
Lincoln.^ 

We  may  well  ask  why  was  Cecil  so  solicitous  to  make  the 
world  believe  that  a  private  execution  was  granted  Essex  at  his 
own  request,  and  why  so  anxious  to  prevent  him  from  "  speak- 
ing of  the  nature  of  his  affairs,"  and  to  so  "precisely"  instruct 
his  pliant  agents  what  to  deal  out  to  the  public?  The  account 
given  of  the  execution  is  certainly  "precise."  We  have  a  pa- 
thetic acknowledgment  from  the  scaffold  af  the  victim's  sins, 
and  of  the  justice  of  his  punishment ;  indeed,  the  tragedy  is  so 
well  staged  that  one  can  hardly  doubt  its  truth ;  and  yet,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  it  is  all  a  fiction  made  to  fit  the  occasion 
by  Cecil,  Barlow,  and  Ashton.  If  there  was  nothing  to  conceal, 
no  secrecy  was  necessary.  There  was  nothing  of  the  kind  when 
Ralegh  went  to  the  block,  nor  when  the  companions  of  Essex 
followed  him.  Why  all  this  effort  at  secrecy  in  one  instance, 
and  publicity  in  another  ?  No  wonder  it  excited  suspicion. 

We  have  seen  that  Essex  before  death  intended  to  make 
something  known  of  public  importance;  what  was  this,  and 
why  did  he  not  disclose  it  to  his  "spiritual"  confidant.?  The 
declaration  must  have  excited  curiosity  enough  for  Ashton  to 
be  questioned  with  regard  to  it,  and  it  seems  that  he  was.  We 
have  a  letter  from  a  correspondent  of  Anthony  Bacon,  dated 
May  30, 1 601,  which  is  suggestive.  The  writer  appears  to  have 
known  Ashton,  and  to  have  drawn  from  him  certain  admis- 
sions. The  italics  are  in  the  original.  He  describes  him  as  "a 
man  base,  fearful,  and  mercenary,  but  such  a  one  as  hy  formal 
show  of  zeal,  had  gotten  a  good  opinion  of  the  earl,  who  that 
way,  being  himself  most  religious,  might  easily  be  deceived." 

^  H.  L.  Stephen,  State  Trials^  vol.  in,  p.  81.   London,  1902. 
604 


CIPHERS 

In  the  account  given  to  the  public,  Ashton  says  that  Essex  first 
told  him  something  which  he  declared  he  did  not  believe.  The 
writer  of  the  letter  to  Anthony  informs  us  that  when  Essex 
told  his  story,  Ashton  retorted,  **Your  end  was  an  ambitious 
seeking  of  the  crown."  What  could  Essex  say  to  Ashton  that 
could  possibly  elicit  from  him  an  expression  of  disbelief,  and 
the  opinion  that  it  was  an  ambitious  seeking  of  the  crown  .f^ 
This  appears  to  have  been  discussed,  for  Spedding  says  that 
"his  change  in  what  he  was  to  disclose  was  imputed  to  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Ashton,  a  Puritan  preacher  who  attended  the 
Earl  in  the  Tower." 

The  writer  of  the  letter  describes  the  violent  terms  which 
Ashton  professed  to  apply  to  the  helpless  man,  "words  of  gall 
and  bitterness,"  and  says:  — 

The  Earl  was  much  amazed  with  this  style,  his  expectations 
being  so  exceedingly  deceiv'd  as  looking  rather  in  his  case  for  a 
comforting  than  so  bitter  and  slanderous  accuser,  and  after  a 
sad  and  silent  pause  answered  him:  "Mr.  Ashton^  you  have  laid 
grievous  things  to  my  charge  of  .which  if  I  could  not  with  truth 
free  and  clear  myself,  I  might  justly  be  holden  one  of  the  most 
unworthy  creatures  on  earth." 

How  foreign  to  this  are  the  words  now  put  into  the  Earl's 
mouth,  that  his  object  was  to  "procure  access  to  her  majesty, 
with  whom  I  assured  myself  to  have  had  that  gracious  hearing, 
that  might  have  tended  to  the  infinite  happiness  of  this  State, 
both  in  removing  evil  instruments  from  about  her  person,  and 
in  settling  the  succession  for  the  crown,"  which,  Ashton  says, 
was  "by  act  of  pariiament  of  the  King  of  Scotland,  as  the  true 
and  immediate  heir  after  her  Majesty  of  this  Kingdom."  ^ 
This,  Ashton  claims,  being  a  "great  matter,"  gave  him  the 
opportunity  of  bringing  in  Cecil,  the  Lord  Admiral,  the  Lord 
Keeper,  and  Treasurer,  the  bitter  enemies  of  Essex,  to  hear  his 
"  confession."  The  introduction  of  the  succession  of  the  Scotch 

^  This  letter  to  Anthony  Bacon  may  be  found  in  full  in  Camden's  Elizabeth^ 
Hearn's  Notes,  pp.  957-61. 

60s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

James  was  no  doubt  inspired  by  Cecil  to  divert  attention  from 
himself,  and  seems  to  have  served  his  purpose,  though  it 
makes  his  infamy  still  blacker,  as  he  was  sending  a  fellow  being 
to  death  for  what  he  himself  was  doing  for  a  prospective  re- 
ward, which  in  due  time  was  paid  in  full.  It  is  doubtful  if  the 
Queen's  pardon  would  have  saved  Essex  after  the  death- 
warrant  was  signed.  He  was  in  the  power  of  enemies,  resolved 
upon  his  destruction,  not  the  least  of  whom  was  the  Lord 
Admiral,  Nottingham,  who,  after  the  death  of  Essex,  in  a  let- 
ter to  Montjoy  describing  the  "confession,"  said:  — ■ 

He  even  charged  his  Sister  with  sharing  his  treason,  and  spared 
not  to  say  something  of  her  affection  of  you.  Would  your  Lord- 
ship have  thought  this  weakness  and  this  unnaturalness  in  the 
man?  ^ 

Montjoy  was  one  of  the  bosom  friends  of  Essex,  and  in  love 
with  his  sister.  His  star  also  was  foreseen  to  be  in  the  ascend- 
ant ;  hence  the  mean  insinuations  of  Nottingham,  who  was  so 
instrumental  in  the  death  of  Essex,  were  intended  to  mitigate 
the  effect  of  his  doings  upon  Montjoy,  the  bosom  friend  of  the 
unfortunate  Earl.  Nottingham's  harsh  and  cruel  character 
renders  his  evidence  of  little  moment.  He  had  served  under 
Essex  in  the  Cadiz  expedition,  and  they  had  afterwards  quar- 
reled. It  was  chiefly  by  Nottingham's  persuasion  and  influ- 
ence, says  Davison,  Elizabeth's  conscientious  but  unfortunate 
Secretary  of  State,  that  Elizabeth  signed  the  death-warrant  of 
the  Queen  of  Scots. 

Of  the  confession  Spedding  says  this,  which  throws  light 
upon  the  manner  in  which  it  was  prepared  for  the  public 
palate :  — 

The  discretion  of  the  Queen  (it  would  have  been  better  to  have 
said  Cecil  and  his  confederates)  obliged  her  to  leave  a  portion 
of  the  story  half  told,  and  some  of  the  most  important  confes- 
sions unpublished,  for  the  narrative  could  not  he  so  managed  as  not 
to  involve  allusions  to  matters  of  which  proofs  could  not  he  fro- 

1  Tanner  MSS.  76,  Fol.  22. 
606 


CIPHERS 

duced,^  Of  these  suppressed  depositions  some  are  lost,  probably 
beyond  recovery,  among  them  the  four  sheets  of  confession  made 
by  Essex  himself.^ 

Vague  mention  is  made  of  the  "Confessions  of  Irish  servants 
and  retainers  .  .  .  that  Essex  had  discussed  the  probability  of 
his  becoming  King  of  England."  But  how  could  a  mere  sub- 
ject without  royal  blood  think  for  a  moment  of  such  a  thing? 
Certainly  Essex,  who  was  a  brave  and  able  man,  versed  in  af- 
fairs of  state,  could  never  have  discussed  such  a  question,  un- 
less he  was  conscious  of  having  some  right  to  the  succession. 
Rash  as  he  undoubtedly  was,  he  was  not  so  rash  as  to  do  that. 
The  whole  matter  relating  to  the  treason  of  Essex  is  con- 
fused and  open  to  grave  differences  of  opinion.  Bruce,  the 
editor  of  the  "Correspondence"  of  Cecil  with  the  Scotch  King, 
is  wholly  in  sympathy  with  Cecil.  One,  however,  who  is  free 
from  the  social  and  hereditary  influences  which  colored  the 
view  of  Bruce,  is  likely  to  take  a  different  view  of  the  evidence. 
Two  vital  points  are  submitted  to  us  to  sustain,  both  involving 
the  charge  of  treason,  and  had  these  not  existed,  it  seems 
doubtful  if  his  enemies,  powerful  as  they  were,  could  have  con- 
victed him;  in  fact,  Bruce  admits  that  "the  criminal  facts  of 
which  Essex  was  ultimately  convicted,  the  treasonable  con- 
ferences at  Drury  House,  and  the  consequent  London  out- 
break —  to  which  the  depositions  were  principally  applied  — 
constituted  but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  plot."  But  even 
Mr.  Bruce  does  not  give  us  anything  else  which  is  tangible, 
and  satisfies  himself  by  saying  of  these  assumed  facts,  "They 
did  not  come  in  question,  legally,  at  his  trial,  and  the  little 
information  we  find  respecting  them  in  the  proceedings  —  is 
altogether  unsatisfactoiy,  and  inconclusive.  What  there  ap- 
peared in  reference  to  them  rather  slipped  out  than  was  made 
known  intentionally y  He  concludes,  however,  that  this  unused 

^  Does  not  this  accord  with  Bacon's  declaration  relative  to  proofs  which  he 
tells  us  were  destroyed,  that  he  and  Essex  were  children  of  the  Queen?  (The 
italics  are  ours.) 

2  Spedding,  Letters  and  Life,  vol.  ii,  p.  325. 

607 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

evidence  "was  purposely  kept  back  because  it  implicated 
persons  not  before  the  court."  There  seem,  then,  to  be  left  but 
two  points  of  evidence  sufficiently  vital  to  bring  him  within  the 
scope  of  the  Act  making  it  treasonable  to  discuss  the  succes- 
sion to  the  throne  of  England  of  one,  not  the  legitimate  off- 
spring of  the  reigning  monarch,  and  Cecil's  noisy  reply  to 
Essex  at  the  trial,  "  I  have  said  that  the  King  of  Spain  is  a 
competitor  of  the  Crown  of  England,  and  that  the  King  of 
Scots  is  a  competitor,  and  my  Lord  of  Essex  is  a  competitor,  for 
he  would  call  a  parliament,  and  so  be  king  himself,^*  ^ 

These  two  points,  conspiring  to  place  another  upon  the 
throne,  or  himself,  were  treasonable  acts,  and  either  one  fur- 
nished a  sufficient  reason  for  his  legal  condemnation.  As  to  the 
first,  not  a  single  letter  is  in  existence,  nor  is  there  any  valid 
evidence  in  the  vague  confessions  of  Southampton  and  others 
associated  with  him  that  Essex  ever  conspired  to  place  James 
VI  upon  the  throne.  Of  course  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  politi- 
cal exigencies  of  the  time,  and  realized  that  Cecil  was  vitally 
interested  in  the  Scotch  succession  upon  which  alone  his  reten- 
tion of  power  could  rest.  In  political  circles  there  was  more  or 
less  coquetting  with  James  by  Montjoy,  Southampton,  Davis, 
and  others  of  the  Essex  party,  and  perhaps  by  Anthony  Bacon, 
his  able  secretary,  in  order  to  counteract  the  efforts  of  Cecil 
which  Essex  himself  must  have  been  anxious  to  accomplish ; 
but  the  declaration  of  Cecil  that  he  was  scheming  for  his  own 
advancement  to  the  throne  utterly  invalidates  the  charge  that 
he  was  seeking  it  for  James,  and  it  may  properly  be  dismissed 
from  consideration.  As  for  his  own  advancement,  as  we  have 
already  said,  it  would  have  been  sheer  madness  for  a  simple 
subject  in  the  position  occupied  by  Essex  to  think  of  such  a 
thing.  If  he  did,  he  must  have  thought  that  he  possessed  some 

*  John  Bruce,  Esq.,  F.S.A.,  Correspondence  of  King  James  VI  of  Scotland, 
etc.,  pp.  xvil  et  seq.,  xxxiii.   London,  1861. 

In  these  letters  names  are  not  mentioned  but  numbers  are  employed.  We 
have,  however,  the  key  to  them.  Thus  O  was  Northumberland;  3  Howard;  10 
Cecil;  24  the  Queen;  30  James,  etc. 

608 


CIPHERS 

moral  or  colorably  legal  claim  to  it.  Think  of  a  mere  subject 
addressing  the  old  Queen  in  this  strange  fashion  —  the  letter  is 
dated  Ardbracken,  August  30,  1599:  — 

To  the  Queen,  From  a  Mind  delighting  in  sorrow,  from  Spirits 
wasted  with  passion,  from  a  heart  torn  in  pieces  with  care  and 
travail,  from  a  man  that  hates  himself  and  all  things  else  that 
keep  him  alive.  It  is  your  rebel's  pride  and  successes  must  give 
me  leave  to  reason  myself  out  of  this  hateful  prison,  out  of  my 
loathed  body.^ 

This  was  from  a  young  man,  gallant,  self-reliant,  and  am- 
bitious. Was  this  wholly  inspired  by  aversion  to  the  command 
of  the  Irish  expedition.? 

Bruce  dilates  upon  "a  little  black  taffeta  bag,"  which  Essex 
always  wore  about  him,  and  which  he  frankly  told  the  officer 
who  stripped  him  naked,  contained  about  a  quarter  of  a  sheet 
of  paper,  and  that  this,  "a  book  of  his  troubles,"  and  papers  in 
two  small  iron  chests,  he  burnt  in  the  presence  of  his  wife  and 
certain  friends.  ^  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  the 
paper  in  this  little  taffeta  bag  and  "the  book  of  his  troubles" 
contained.  What  troubles  could  this  young  man  have,  who,  if 
we  accept  the  testimony  of  his  friends,  was  of  a  studious  and 
joyous  nature,  to  put  down  in  a  book  which  he  so  carefully 
preserved  until  he  knew  that  his  person  and  premises  were 
about  to  be  searched  by  pitiless  enemies .?  If  they  were  political 
troubles,  troubles  at  Court,  or  arising  from  his  life  in  the 
world,  they  could  hardly  have  been  dangerous  enough  to  make 
such  unusual  secrecy  necessary.^ 

We  are  told  that  the  paper  was  "probably"  a  letter  from  the 
Scotch  King,  but  this  is  a  mere  guess ;  Cecil  had  a  bundle  of 
more  dangerous  letters  at  Hatfield.  The  fact  is,  the  story  of 
Essex,  as  we  have  it,  is  a  fiction  emanating  from  his  enemies, 
and  never  correctly  told.  It  has  been  a  case  of  following  the 

^  This  Is  from  Birch.  An  edited  version  is  in  the  Lives  and  Letters  of  Devereux^ 
vol.  II,  p.  68. 

2  Bruce,  Letters  to  James  FI,  pp.  80,  81. 

3  Again  we  refer  to  the  Cipher  Story,  ante^  p.  559. 

609 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

leader  by  every  one  who  has  written  upon  the  subject,  even  by 
Devereux,  who  repeats  the  cut-and-dried  story  of  the  confes- 
sion and  execution  of  the  most  noted  of  his  past  kinsmen. 
None  of  them  has  ever  attempted  to  subject  this  inspired  story 
to  a  critical  analysis,  and  a  brave  and  gallant  gentleman  has 
come  down  to  us  a  hair-brained  and  turbulent  fool.  If,  how- 
ever, he  was  really  the  son  of  Leicester  and  the  Queen,  his  atti- 
tude toward  her  appears  no  longer  strange,  and  his  "troubles" 
are  readily  accounted  for. 

In  the  trial  of  Essex  there  is  a  reasonable  probability  that 
the  position  of  the  Queen  and  Bacon  was  misunderstood. 
Essex  had  headed  a  dangerous  uprising,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  the  integrity  of  the  throne  that  he  should  be  suppressed,  no 
matter  how  dear  to  the  Queen  or  to  Bacon  he  might  have  been. 
There  was  but  one  way  open  to  Essex,  namely,  to  frankly  con- 
fess his  error  and  throw  himself  upon  the  Queen's  mercy,  and 
this  was  just  what  Bacon  urged  him  to  do.  It  is  probable  that 
this  was  what  the  Queen  ardently  desired,  as  it  left  her  an 
opportunity  to  pardon  him,  but  the  proud  rebel  resented  every 
suggestion  of  the  confession  which  Bacon  urgently  pressed 
upon  him,  no  doubt  with  the  hope  of  saving  his  life.  Even 
after  his  conviction  there  is  evidence  that  he  would  have  been 
pardoned  if  the  Queen  could  have  had  her  way.  This  may  be 
no  more  than  a  plausible  deduction  from  the  account  of  the 
trial  as  we  have  it,  but  it  seems  worth  considering. 

Among  the  silent  memorials  left  by  prisoners  in  the  Tower  is 
one  presumably  made  by  Essex,  which  is  pregnant  with  signifi- 
cance.   We  quote  from  the  oflScial  hand-book  of  the  tower:  — 

Over  the  doorway  of  the  small  cell,  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs, 
is  the  name  Robart  Tidir.^    (See  facsimile  on  next  page.) 

Tidir  or  Tidder  is  an  obsolete  form  of  Tudor,  that  royal 
family  of  which  Elizabeth  was  the  last  representative,  and  it 
is  a  remarkable  fact  that  Francis  Bacon's  "New  Atlantis," 

*  W.  R.  Dicke,  A  Short  Sketch  of  Beaumont  Tower,  p.  ii.  London. 

6io 


CIPHERS 

published  after  his  death  by  his  chaplain,  contains  these  words 
in  cipher, "  My  name  is  Tidder,  yet  men  speak  of  me  as  Bacon." 


We  leave  it  for  the  reader  to  decide  if  the  conditions  sur- 
rounding the  execution  of  Essex  are  not  precisely  such  as 
would  have  existed  if  the  cipher  story  were  true.  It  should, 
however,  be  borne  in  mind  that,  while  the  cipher  story  sug- 
gested this  study  of  the  case  of  Essex,  all  that  is  here  adduced 
rests  upon  historical  data.  This  will  be  denied  by  prejudiced 
critics,  who  will  call  our  citations  scraps  of  fiction  raked  from 
the  muck-heaps  of  ancient  scandal,  but  they  are  just  as  reliable 
as  the  "well-filed''  orthodox  history  of  the  time. 

In  addition  to  the  authorities  quoted  we  direct  the  student 
to  others,  with  full  confidence  that  if  he  critically  studies  that 
part  of  English  history  in  which  Elizabeth  Tudor  and  Robert 
Dudley  played  such  conspicuous  parts,  he  will  conclude  that 
they  rationally  fit  into  and  accord  with  it.^ 

THE    queen's   ring 

The  story  of  the  ring,  said  to  have  been  given  by  the  Queen 
to  Essex  as  a  pledge  to  help  him  in  his  last  extremity,  has  been 
retold  by  many  writers  to  the  present  time,  but  recently  has 
been  declared  to  be  a  fiction.   In  seeking  reasons  for  this  it 

^  Vide  Samuel  Haynes,  Collection  of  State  Papers,  etc.,  1542,  1570.  London, 
1740;  The  Hardwicke  and  Tytler  Papers;  Historic  Memoirs  of  Sir  James  Melville; 
Throckmorton  MSS.;  especially  the  Burghley  Papers,  noted  in  Calendar  of  MSS. 
of  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  under  heads  of  "Elizabeth"  and  "Leicester";  and 
Gregorio  Leti's  Vie  d^ Elizabeth,  founded  upon  the  manuscript  collections  of 
Lord  Aylesbury,  now  unfortunately  lost.  Leti's  failure  to  quote  his  authorities 
verbatim  is  nearly  as  unfortunate  as  their  loss. 

611 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

appears  that  the  story  has  been  told  of  two  rings,  and  that 
neither  Howell  nor  the  Helmingham  manuscript  mentions  the 
ring  at  all.  This  seems  to  be  the  principal  reason  urged  for 
discrediting  the  story,  and  is  a  novel  way  of  establishing  a 
negative  to  one  acquainted  with  that  useful  chronicler,  How- 
ell, for  we  well  know  that  there  were  many  true  occurrences 
which  he  did  not  record.  The  lack  of  mention  in  the  Helming- 
ham manuscript  is  an  equally  unfortunate  citation.  That  the 
objection  urged  by  those  who  discredit  the  story  fails  to  settle 
the  question  rests  upon  as  good  authority  as  Judge  Stephen, 
who  firmly  expresses  his  confidence  in  the  truth  of  the  tradi- 
tion in  these  words :  — 

There  is  at  Helmingham  a  portrait  of  Essex's  daughter,  Lady 
Frances  Devereux,  wearing  the  jewel  in  an  earring,  and  in  case 
this  does  not  convince  my  readers,  I  may  add  that  the  jewel 
itself,  a  ring  with  a  lock  of  hair,  which  may  once  have  been  red, 
hanging  from  it,  is  now  at  Ham  House,  the  property  of  the  Earl 
of  Dysart.^ 

Let  us  endeavor  to  trace  the  story  to  its  source. 

The  first  recorded  account  of  the  ring  is  given  by  Aubery  de 
Maurier,  French  Ambassador  to  Holland,  who  had  it  from  Sir 
Dudley  Carleton,  the  English  Ambassador  there  under  Eliza- 
beth's successor.  Carleton  returned  from  his  embassy  in  i6i8.^ 
That  the  story  was  in  circulation  at  an  early  date  appears  from 
an  allusion  to  it  by  Clarendon  in  a  book  supposed  to  have  been 
written  while  at  Magdalen  College,  where  he  matriculated  in 
1621.^  The  best  account  is  by  Lady  Elizabeth  Spelman,  the 
great-granddaughter  of  Sir  Robert  Cary,  who  attended  upon 
Queen  Elizabeth  during  her  last  days.   She  says :  — 

When  the  Countess  of  Nottingham  was  dying,  she  sent  to  en- 
treat the  Queen  to  visit  her,  as  she  had  something  to  reveal  before 
she  could  die  in  peace.    On  the  Queen's  coming.  Lady  Notting- 

*  H.  L.  Stephen,  State  Trials^  vol.  iii,  p.  81.   London,  1902. 
2  Mem.  pour  servir  a  VHistoire  d'Hollande,  p.  269.   Paris,  1688. 
'  Disparity  between  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham. 

612 


CIPHERS 

ham  told  her  that  when  the  Earl  of  Essex  was  lying  under  sen- 
tence of  death,  he  was  desirous  to  ask  Her  Majesty's  mercy  in  the 
manner  she  had  prescribed  during  the  height  of  his  favour.  Being 
doubtful  of  those  about  him,  and  unwilling  to  trust  any  of  them, 
he  called  a  boy  whom  he  saw  passing  beneath  his  window,  and 
whose  appearance  pleased  him,  and  engaged  him  to  carry  the  ring, 
which  he  threw  down  to  him,  to  the  Lady  Scrope,  a  sister  of  Lady 
Nottingham,  and  a  friend  of  the  Earl,  who  was  also  in  attend- 
ance on  the  Queen,  and  to  beg  her  to  present  it  to  Her  Majesty. 
The  boy,  by  mistake,  took  it  to  Lady  Nottingham,  who  showed 
it  to  her  husband  in  order  to  take  his  advice.  The  Earl  forbade 
her  to  carry  it  to  the  Queen,  or  return  any  answer  to  the  mes- 
sage, but  desired  her  to  retain  the  ring.  Lady  Nottingham,  hav- 
ing made  this  confession,  entreated  the  Queen's  forgiveness;  but 
Elizabeth,  exclaiming,  "God  may  forgive  you,  but  I  never  can!" 
left  the  room  in  great  emotion,  and  was  so  much  agitated  and 
distressed  that  she  refused  to  go  to  bed,  nor  would  she  for  a  long 
time  take  any  sustenance. 

The  ring  has  descended  in  one  unbroken  succession  to  the 
Reverend  Lord  John  Thynne  from  Lady  Frances  Devereux, 
afterwards  Duchess  of  Somerset,  who  was  the  daughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Essex.  It  bears  the  head,  in  relief,  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
engraved  on  a  sardonyx;  the  sides  are  chased  and  the  under 
side  of  the  seal  is  blue  enamel.  That  it  was  not  mentioned  in 
the  will  of  the  Duchess  of  Somerset  is  no  proof  against  its  gen- 
uineness, as  doubtless  it  had  been  given  already  to  her  daugh- 
ter, Mary,  wife  of  the  Earl  of  Winchelsea,  who  passed  it  on 
to  her  daughter,  Frances,  wife  of  Thomas  Thynne,  Viscount 
Weymouth. 

That  there  is  another  ring  which  has  been  called  the  Essex 
ring  is  not  strange ;  it  would  be  strange  if  there  were  not  sev- 
eral. This  ring  is  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  Queen  of  Scots, 
who  gave  it  to  Queen  Elizabeth.  In  some  unexplained  way  it 
is  said  to  have  passed  into  the  possession  of  Charles  I,  who,  its 
owner  claims,  gave  it  to  Sir  Thomas  Warner,  a  West  India 
adventurer.  Its  present  owner  is  one  of  his  descendants.  Its 
title  to  validity  is  too  shadowy  for  serious  consideration,  but 

613 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 


as  a  matter  of  curiosity  we  give  an  accurate  representation 
of  it. 


THE  WARNER  RING 


THE   QUEEN'S  kiNG 


When  the  cipher  story  appeared,  which  mentioned  the  ring, 
one  of  the  first  things  seized  upon  by  Stratfordians  was  this, 
and  they  hastily  raised  the  objections  which  we  have  cited. 
Even  should  the  cipher  story  be  disproved,  we  believe  that  the 
reader  will  conclude  that  the  story  of  the  Queen's  ring  has 
sufficiently  clear  evidence  in  its  favor  to  keep  it  out  of  the 
obscurity  of  merely  popular  tradition. 


EPILOGUE 

A  SUMMARY  OF  WHAT  IS  RECORDED  OF  THE  WHERE- 
ABOUTS AND  DOINGS  FROM  TIME  TO  TIME  OF 

FRANCIS  BACON  AND  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

1560  (O.S.) 

Francis  Bacon,  born  January  22,  at  York  House,  London. 
His  early  education  could  not  have  been  in  better  hands. 
Nicholas  and  Lady  Bacon  were  distinguished  for  character  and 
scholarship. 

1564 
William  Shakspere,  baptized  at  Stratford,  April  26,  1564; 
born  of  illiterate  parents.  Despite  Lee's  positive  statement  to 
the  contrary  there  is  not  a  shred  of  proof  that  his  father  could 
write  his  name.  In  all  cases  he  made  his  mark. 

1572-1577 

Francis  Bacon,  phenomenally  precocious,  was  reared  amid 
intellectual  surroundings.  His  attainments  were  such  that 
before  twelve  his  bust  was  made,  and  before  eighteen  his 
portrait  was  painted  and  inscribed  "Could  we  but  behold  his 
mind."  At  this  time  he  had  "run  through  the  whole  circle  of 
the  liberal  arts,'*  and,  dissatisfied  with  the  methods  of  educa- 
tion then  practiced,  was  devising  means  for  improving  them.  It 
is  said  that  he  had  acquired  a  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  Greek, 
Latin,  Spanish,  Italian,  and  French.  He  was  sent  in  1577 
with  Sir  Amyas  Paulet,  the  British  Ambassador,  to  the  Court 
of  France,  where  he  mingled  with  the  most  exalted  statesmen 
and  wits  of  that  brilliant  period,  and  acquired  knowledge  of 

61S 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

foreign  courts  and  politics.   Such  proficiencies  are  freely  dis- 
played in  the  "Shakespeare"  Works. 

Shakspere  is  supposed  to  have  attended  the  Grammar 
School  for  a  short  time.  Is  supposed  to  have  been  removed 
from  this  school  and  apprenticed  at  the  age  of  thirteen  to  a 
butcher,  his  father  being  in  financial  distress. 

1 579 
Bacon  called  home,  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon  having  died,  be- 
queathing his  property  to  Anthony  and  other  children,  but 
Francis  virtually  unprovided  for.  Lady  Bacon  provides  him  a 
home  at  Gorhambury,  St.  Albans;  studies  law  ''against  the 
bent  of  his  genius."  Evidence  that  he  was  on  the  Continent 
some  time  in  1580-81. 

1582 

Bacon  admitted  to  the  Bar.  Between  1579  and  this  date 
Reed  assigns  production  of  "King  John,"  "Henry  V,"  and 
"King  Lear." 

Shakspere  marries,  November  28,  Anne  Hathaway,  an 
illiterate,  under  disreputable  circumstances.  Traditions  of 
poaching  and  drinking-bouts  survive.  Six  months  later  (May 
26)  daughter  Susanna  born. 

1584 
Bacon,  well  versed  in  law  and  state  affairs,  writes  letter  of 
advice  to  the  Queen,  who  accepts  it  "graciously."   Between 
this  date  and  1582,  Reed  assigns  "Pericles,"  "Titus  Andro- 
nicus,"  and  "Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona." 

1585-86 

Bacon  writes  "Greatest  Birth  of  Time,"  forerunner  of 
"Advancement  of  Learning."  Malone  assigns  "The  Conten- 
tion, or  Henry  VI,"  to  this  period;  its  author's  "earliest  com- 
plete drama,"  says  Phillipps.  The  play  is  cast  in  the  province 

616 


EPILOGUE 

of  France,  where  Bacon  had  resided,  and  In  England.    Its 
scenes  are  laid  in  localities  especially  familiar  to  him  —  West- 
minster Abbey,  Temple  Grafton,   Parliament  House,  and 
Saint  Albans. 
Shakspere's  children,  Hamnet  and  Judith,  born. 

1587 

Bacon  assists  in  presenting,  at  Gray's  Inn  Revels,  an  anony- 
mous play,  "The  Tragedy  of  Arthur,"  a  reminiscence  of 
"King  John,"  containing  many  extracts  found  in  his  notebook, 
the  "Promus."  Between  1585-87,  Reed  places  "Hamlet," 
"Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  and  "Comedy  of  Errors";  in  1588, 
"Love's  Labours  Lost."  Furnivall  agrees;  Staunton  thinks 
1587-91.  The  scene  is  laid  at  the  Court  of  Navarre  where 
Bacon  passed  the  romantic  springtime  of  his  life  in  close  inti- 
macy with  the  brilliant  men  and  women  who  composed  it. 
Anthony  Bacon,  attached  to  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps, 
residing  in  Italy,  was  in  constant  correspondence  with  Francis. 
During  this  period  Italian  plays  were  produced ;  actors  in  four 
of  them  named  Antonio,  Italian  for  Anthony.  The  scenes 
where  these  plays  were  laid,  Rome,  Venice,  Padua,  Milan, 
Vienna,  etc.,  were  familiar  to  Anthony  and  Francis. 

Shakspere,  forsaking  the  trade  of  butcher's  apprentice,  wife, 
and  children,  flees  on  foot  to  London  to  escape  prosecution  for 
stealing  deer  and  rabbits.  Reaching  London,  a  rude  peasant 
speaking  the  "patois"  of  Warwickshire,  says  Phillipps,  he 
finds  employment  in  Burbage's  stable.  "Hamlet,"  an  anon- 
ymous play  then  on  the  stage,  the  same  play  that  the  best 
critics  now  admit  is  in  the  canon. 

1588-89 

Bacon  in  Parliament.  He  writes  "Advertisement  Touching 
the  Controversies  of  the  Church" ;  is  given  reversion  of  clerk- 
ship in  Star  Chamber  yielding  no  immediate  salary.  Delius 
assigns  this  date  to  "Venus  and  Adonis";  others  even  earlier. 

617 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Shakspere  "a  servitor"  in  the  company  of  Burbage.  Is 
mentioned  in  a  bill  of  complaint  against  John  Lambert  of 
Stratford. 

1591 
Bacon  residing  at  Gray's  Inn  with  intervals  at  Gorhambury 
and  Twickenham.  During  four  years,  though  a  man  never 
idle,  he  published  no  works  under  his  own  name.  He  writes 
Lord  Burghley  that  he  has  "vast  contemplative  ends,"  but 
"moderate  civil  ends,"  and  that  " philanthropia  is  so  fixed"  in 
his  "mind  that  it  cannot  be  removed."  The  Queen  visits  him 
at  Twickenham  and  he  presents  her  with  a  sonnet.  To  this 
period  is  attributed  "The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  and 
by  some  "  Henry  VI."  Anthony  Bacon  returns  from  abroad. 

1592 

Francis  and  Anthony  secretaries  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  whose 
extravagance  leaves  salaries  unpaid.  Francis,  who  has  given 
bond  for  "two  months"  to  a  Jew,  is  sued  and  imprisoned. 
Anthony  relieves  him  by  mortgage  on  his  property.  The  faith- 
ful friend  in  the  play  of  the  "Merchant  of  Venice"  is  another 
Antony,  a  good  likeness  of  the  Anthony  whom  Spedding 
depicts.^  Delius  assigns  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  to  this  date. 
"Henry  VI"  acted  by  "Lord  Strange's  men." 

Shakspere's  personal  description,  comporting  with  what  is 
hitherto  known  of  him,  is  given  by  Greene. 

"Venus  and  Adonis,"  is  published  with  name  William 
Shakespeare  on  the  title-page.  In  the  dedication  to  Bacon's 
friend,  Southampton,  the  author  says,  it  is  "the  first  heir  of 
mine  invention,"  which  would  carry  it  back  to  a  much  earlier 
date.  Bacon  publishes  reply  to  attack  upon  the  Government, 
and  espouses  popular  cause,  to  displeasure  of  Burghley  and 
the  Queen.  Obliged  by  plague  he  leaves  Gray's  Inn,  suspend- 

^  See  Lee's  attempt  to  connect  this  play  with  the  well-known  Lopez  incident 
{Life,  etc.,  p.  68).  And  Dictionary  National  Biography,  in  loco. 

618 


EPILOGUE 

ing  his  lectures  there,  and  takes  refuge  at  Twickenham,  "not 
to  play  and  read,  but  to  pursue  philosophy,  and  to  discuss  the 
laws  of  thought." 

Shakspere's  name,  for  the  first  time  since  coming  to  London, 
appears  in  a  list  of  actors  in  a  Christmas  play  before  the  Queen. 

1 594 
Bacon's  "Promus"  begun,  December  5.  It  contains  1560 
phrases,  poetical  expressions,  quotations,  and  proverbs  from 
various  languages  for  use  in  literary  composition.  These  are 
found  scattered  throughout  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  as 
well  as  Bacon's  philosophical  works,  especially  after  this  date. 
The  Christmas  Masque  at  Gray's  Inn  proves  a  failure,  and 
Bacon  is  solicited  for  aid  "in  recovering"  its  "lost  honour." 
Lady  Bacon  is  greatly  disturbed  at  the  connection  of  Anthony 
and  Francis  with  dramatic  performances.  "Lucrece,"  dedi- 
cated to  Bacon's  friend,  Southampton,  is  published.  "  Richard 
11"  and  "Richard  III"  appear  and  "II  Henry  VI."  Bacon, 
"poor  and  sick  working  for  bread."  Essex,  in  debt  to  the 
Bacons  for  salary,  asks  the  Queen  to  appoint  Francis  Solicitor- 
General.  Angered  by  him,  she  refuses,  and  Essex  conveys  to 
him  land  adjoining  Twickenham  valued  at  eighteen  hundred 
pounds.  The  Queen  forgives  Essex,  who  entertains  on  the 
Queen's  Day.  Bacon  composes  "The  Device  of  an  Indian 
Prince"  for  the  occasion.  He  writes  in  notebook,  "Law  at 
Twickenham  for  ye  merry  tales";  writes  Essex  that  "Law 
drinketh  too  much  time  —  dedicated  to  better  purposes." 

IS9S 
After  "  a  great  consultation  for  the  recovery  of  their  hon- 
our," carried  on  in  amusing  manner,  on  January  3,  an  enter- 
tainment, "one  of  the  most  elegant,  that  was  ever  presented  to 
an  audience  of  statesmen  and  courtiers,"  entitled  the  "Order 
of  the  Helmet,"  is  produced,  and  the  lost  honor  of  Gray's  Inn 
is  saved  by  Bacon.    "Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"   "All's 

619 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

Well  that  ends  Well/'  and  "The  Merchant  of  Venice  "presum- 
ably were  written.  "  III  Henry  VI,"  published;  Collins  says, 
"'All's  Weir  perhaps  produced  in  1593  or  1594,  under  title 
'Love's  Labour's  Won.'"  ^  In  this  play  we  find  "the  law  for 
ye  merry  tales,"  which  greatly  impressed  Lord  Campbell  by 
the  author's  accurate  knowledge  of  law. 

Shakspere  listed  on  subsidies  tax  list  in  St.  Helens,  Bishops- 
gate. 

1596 

Bacon  writes  "Colours  of  Good  and  Evil"  and  "Medita- 
tionae  Sacrae." 

The  Lord  Chamberlain's  Company  before  the  Queen.  She 
pays  Burbage,  Shakspere,  and  Kempe  the  sum  of  twenty 
pounds.  Shakspere  returned  as  defaulter  in  subsidy  tax  in  St. 
Helens.  His  son,  Hamnet  dies  August  11. 

IS97 

Bacon  speaks  in  Parliament  against  enclosures  January  30. 
Writes  his  friend  Mathews,  of  "Works  of  his  Recreation,"  and 
that  "Tragedies  and  Comedies  are  made  of  one  Alphabet." 
His  Essays,  dedicated  to  Anthony,  published.  "Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  "Richard  II,"  and  "Richard  III,"  the  two  latter 
partly  rewritten  and  published  anonymously. 

Shakspere  is  recorded  living  near  "Bear  Garden,  South- 
wark."  Buys  New  Place,  Stratford.  Is  taxed  at  St.  Helens. 
Is  returned  as  householder  in  Chapel  Street,  Stratford,  and  as 
owner  of  ten  quarters  of  corn. 

IS9B 
Bacon  is  embarrassed  by  the  Queen's  anger  because  of  a 
pamphlet  by  Hayward  based  upon  the  play  of  "Richard  11"; 
"I  Henry  IV,"  and  "Love's  Labours  Lost"  published;  the 
latter,  first  drama  bearing  name  "William  Shake-speare." 

*  The  Complete  Works ,  etc.  Porter  &  Clark,  p.  g.,  vol.  iv.  London,  n.  d. 

620 


EPILOGUE 

Says  Lee :  — 

"Love's  Labour's  Lost"  embodies  keen  observation  of  con- 
temporary life  in  many  ranks  of  society,  both  in  town  and  coun- 
try, while  the  speeches  of  the  hero,  Biron,  clothe  much  sound 
philosophy  in  masterly  rhetoric,  contemporary  projects  of  Aca- 
demics for  disciplining  young  men,  fashions  of  speech  and  dress 
current  in  fashionable  society;  recent  attempts  on  the  part  of 
Elizabeth's  government  to  negotiate  with  the  Tsar  of  Russia; 
the  inefficiency  of  rural  constables  and  the  pedantry  of  village 
schoolmasters  and  curates,  are  all  satirized  good  humour.^ 

Lee  here  summons  before  us  the  personality  of  Bacon,  not 
of  the  Stratford  actor. 

Bacon  proffers  Burghley  a  masque  at  Gray's  Inn;  he  writes, 
—  "It  happened  that  Her  Majesty  had  a  purpose  to  dine  at 
Twickenham  Park  at  which  time  I  had  prepared  a  sonnet, 
directly  tending,  and  alluding  to  draw  on  Her  Majesty's  recon- 
cilement to  my  lord  (of  Essex)." 

Shakspere  is  "supposed"  to  have  played  in  Jonson's 
"Every  Man  in  his  Humour";  "supposed"  part  Old  Knowell. 
Again  taxed  in  St.  Helens.  Bought  stone  to  repair  his  house. 
Is  written  to  by  friends  about  buying  some  odd  yardland  at 
Shottery  and  loans  of  money. 

Phillipps  says :  — 

It  is  certain  .  .  .  that  his  thoughts  were  not  at  this  time 
absorbed  by  literature,  or  the  stage.  So  far  from  this  being  the 
case,  there  are  good  reasons  for  concluding  that  they  were 
largely  occupied  with  matters  relating  to  pecuniary  affairs.  He 
was  then  considering  the  advisability  of  purchasing  an  "odd  yard 
land  or  other"  in  the  neighborhood. 

1599-1600 

Bacon  busy  with  his  literary  work  and  a  scriptorium  which 
he  and  Anthony  are  carrying  on.  Employs  Ben  Jonson  and 
others  writing  for  it.  Shakspere  fraudulently  obtains  confirma- 
tion of  coat  of  arms,  formerly  applied  for  by  his  father,  which 

^  Lee,  A  Life  of^  etc.,  p.  50. 
621 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

causes  protest  to  be  made  to  the  Herald-at-Arms,  and  excites 
ridicule  among  the  wits  and  writers  of  the  metropoKs.  Essex 
is  prosecuted  for  treason.  Bacon  endeavors  to  placate  the 
Queen.  Drafts  letters  for  Essex  to  that  end.  Bacon  writes  the 
Queen  about  the  condition  of  Lady  Bacon,  who  is  lapsing  into 
insanity,  a  subject  so  well  treated  in  "Hamlet"  and  "Lear," 
that  alienists  have  admiringly  commented  upon  it.  "Henry 
V";  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream";  "Merchant  of  Venice"; 
"Much  Ado,"  and  "Titus  Andronicus,"  published.  Shak- 
spere  recovers  debt  of  seven  pounds  of  John  Clayton,  London. 

1601 

Bacon,  studying  in  his  "poor  cell"  at  Gray's  Inn,  re- 
moves to  Twickenham.  By  command  of  the  Queen  he  con- 
ducts the  prosecution  of  Essex.  Essex  is  executed.  Anthony 
dies. 

Furnivall  assigns  "Julius  Caesar"  to  this  date  and  cites  this 
contemporary  allusion :  — 

The  lesson  of  Julius  Caesar  is  that  vengeance,  death,  shall  follow 
rebellion  for  insufficient  cause,  for  misjudging  the  political  state 
of  one's  country  and  taking  unlawful  means  to  obtain  your 
ends.^ 

1602 

May  I,  Shakspere  purchases  107  acres  of  land  in  Old  Strat- 
ford, and  September  28  a  cottage  and  garden  near  New  Place; 
plants  an  orchard. 

1603 

Elizabeth  dies.  Everybody  about  Court  anxious  to  be 
brought  to  the  notice  of  James,  their  living  depending  upon 
his  favor.  Bacon  writes  Sir  John  Davis,  known  as  a  poet,  then 
on  his  way  to  meet  the  King,  desiring  him  "to  be  good  to 
concealed  poets,"  and  remember  him  with  a  good  word  when 

^  John  Weaver,  Mirror  of  Martyrs.    London,  1601. 
622 


EPILOGUE 

at  Court.  His  "Valerius  Terminus  "published.  In  Parliament 
Bacon  speaks  against  abuses  in  weights  and  measures,  and  in 
favor  of  repealing  superfluous  laws.  Writes  "Certain  Con- 
siderations Touching  the  Better  Pacification  of  the  Church  of 
England/'  and  the  beginning  of  the  "Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing." "Measure  for  Measure"  is  played  for  the  first  and  only 
time,  until  after  publication  twenty  years  later,  when  it  was 
played  at  Pembroke  House,  Wilton,  to  entertain  the  King  who 
was  attending  the  trial  of  Ralegh  at  Winchester.  In  this  play 
we  meet  Bacon  face  to  face,  and  hear  again  what  he  has  said 
about  "absolute"  and  "sleeping"  laws;  the  "law's  delay," 
"judicature,"  abuses  of  weights  and  measures,  etc.  It  has 
been  suggested  that  Isabella's  speech  was  introduced  in 
Ralegh's  behalf  to  incline  the  King's  heart  to  mercy.  "Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor"  is  also  published. 

1604 

Bacon  writes  "Apology  in  Certain  Imputations  concerning 
the  Late  Earl  of  Essex,"  and  four  Drafts  and  Acts  of  Procla- 
mations: appointed  a  member  of  the  "Learned  Counsel,"  and 
chosen  spokesman  for  Committees  of  Conference  with  House 
of  Lords.  "Othello"  is  attributed  by  Delius  to  this  year,  and 
"Lear"  by  others. 

Shakspere  is  listed  with  other  actors  as  licensed  by  the  King ; 
"supposedly"  acts  in  Jonson's  play  of  "Sejanus";  walks  in 
procession  from  the  Tower  to  Westminster  with  other  actors, 
and  is  allowed  four  yards  and  a  half  of  scarlet  cloth  to  deck 
himself  withal.  Sues  Rogers,  a  neighbor,  for  one  pound, 
fifteen  shillings  and  ten  pence,  for  malt  delivered  him  on 
several  occasions;  is  listed  as  holding  a  cottage  and  garden  in 
Stratford. 

1605-06 

Bacon  publishes  two  books  of  "Advancement  of  Learning." 
Spedding  says,  prorogation  of  Parliament  gave  him  best  part 

623 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

of  year  for  literary  work.  Proposes  to  Lord  Chancellor  to  write 
history  of  Great  Britain.  Marries  daughter  of  Lady  Pack- 
ington;  third  edition  of  Essays  published  by  Jaggard  who 
printed  the  Shakespeare  Folio.  "A  Lover's  Complaint"  writ- 
ten about  this  time;  Sonnet  XII  reveals  thoughts  on  youth 
and  age. 

Shakspere  buys  moiety  of  the  tithes  of  Old  Stratford  and 
adjoining  parishes  for  four  hundred  and  forty  pounds.  Is  be- 
queathed "a  thirty  shillinges  peece  in  goold"  by  Phillips,  a 
fellow  actor.  The  company  to  which  he  belongs  performs 
"King  Lear"  and  "Macbeth,"  at  Whitehall,  December  26, 
1606,  but  his  name  is  not  mentioned.  Is  engaged  in  trade 
and  agriculture;  listed  in  Stratford  as  holder  of  copyhold 
estate. 

1607 

Bacon  is  promoted  to  the  office  of  Solicitor-General.  Is  in- 
terested in  founding  colony  in  Virginia;  comparatively  free 
from  public  business  this  year. 

Shakspere's  daughter,  Susanna,  marries  Dr.  Hall  at  Strat- 
ford. 

1608-09 

Bacon  is  near  nervous  breakdown  affecting  his  "imagina- 
tion" seriously.  His  good  friend.  Sir  Tobie  Matthews,  be- 
comes a  Roman  Catholic,  is  banished.  Bacon  secures  suspen- 
sion of  decree,  and,  subsequently,  befriends  him;  is  abused 
therefor.  "Pericles"  and  "A  Yorkshire  Tragedy"  on  the 
stage.  Bacon  in  correspondence  with  Matthews  to  whose 
critical  judgment  he  submits  his  manuscripts ;  speaks  of  his 
scientific  and  historical  works,  and  of  "other  writings"  and 
"the  little  work  of  my  recreation."  "Troilus  and  Cressida" 
published,  also  the  Sonnets,  dedicated  to  Bacon's  lifelong 
friend,  William  Herbert. 

Shakspere  recovers  suit  against  John  Adenbrook  for  seven 

624 


EPILOGUE 

pounds,  four  shillings,  and,  upon  failure  to  pay,  sues  his 
bondsman.  Godfather  to  son  of  William  Walker,  a  neighbor. 
Purchases  twenty  acres  of  pasture  land  of  Combe.  The  com- 
pany to  which  he  belongs  is  at  the  Blackfriars,  but  his  name 
not  mentioned. 

1610-12 

Bacon  begins  a  history  of  Great  Britain.  "Cymbeline''  and 
"Winter's  Tale"  attributed  by  Delius  to  this  date.  The  latter 
contains  Bacon's  horticultural  observations.  Is  member  of  the 
Virginia  Company  with  his  friends,  Southampton,  Pembroke, 
and  Montgomery,  who  send  Sir  John  Somers  to  West  Indies; 
his  ship  wrecked  on  Bermudas;  the  "still  vexed  Bermoothes." 
To  this  voyage  is  due  "The  Tempest,"  written  soon  after, 
which  embodies  so  many  of  the  results  of  Bacon's  studies  as  to 
distinctly  fix  its  authorship.^  It  was  played  before  the  King, 
November  i,  161 1.  Shakspere's  name  was  not  mentioned  as 
present.  Bacon  is  made  Secretary  of  State;  takes  principal 
part  in  masque  at  Gray's  Inn. 

'  Shakspere's  estate,  bought  of  the  Combes,  fined.  His  name 
appears  in  a  lawsuit,  and  he  is  also  engaged  in  litigation  over 
his  share  in  the  tithes  bought  on  speculation  seven  years 
before. 

1613 

Bacon  appointed  Attorney-General.  Wrote  masque  which 
he  presented  at  Gray's  Inn  in  honor  of  the  Earl  of  Somerset, 
which  cost  him  two  thousand  pounds ;  refused  to  permit  others 
to  contribute,  though  Yelverton  desired  to  subscribe  five 
hundred  pounds.   "Henry  VIII"  ascribed  to  this  date. 

Shakspere  is  still  at  Stratford  engaged  in  petty  trade  accord- 
ing to  Phillipps;  attentive  to  business,  growing  in  estate,  pur- 

1  Cf.  Bacon's  Heat  and  Cold;  Ebb  and  Flow  of  the  Sea;  the  Biform  Figure  of 
Nature;  exhibited  in  Ariel  and  Caliban;  History  of  the  Winds;  the  Sailing  of 
Ships;  Dense  and  Rare. 

62s 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

chasing  farms,  houses,  and  tithes  in  Stratford,  bringing  suits 
for  small  sums  against  various  persons  for  malt  delivered, 
money  loaned,  and  the  like ;  carrying  on  agricultural  pursuits, 
and  other  kinds  of  traffic.  The  best  evidence  we  can  produce 
exhibits  him  as  paying  more  regard  to  his  solid  affairs  than  to 
his  profession.  It  seems  that  he  must  have  practically  deserted 
the  stage  shortly  after  the  purchase  of  his  Stratford  home. 
June  29,  the  Globe  Theater  is  burned ;  his  name  is  not  men- 
tioned. Burbage  is  employed  by  Lord  Rutland's  steward  to 
paint  his  master's  cognizance,  or  "impresso,"  as  it  was  called, 
for  a  celebration  at  the  castle  of  Belvoir.  This  was  a  coat  of 
arms  with  coarse  mantlings  gaudily  painted  on  canvas  or 
boards  to  impress  the  gaping  mob  with  the  importance  of 
their  lord.  His  former  associate  residing  in  the  vicinity,  Bur- 
bage procures  his  assistance,  and  Shakspere  is  paid  for  his 
services  forty-four  shillings.  Buys  with  three  others  house 
near  Blackfriars  in  London  for  one  hundred  and  forty  pounds; 
mortgages  it  back  for  sixty  pounds;  "was  unpaid  at  his 
death."  ' 

1614-1S 

Bacon  is  returned  Member  of  Parliament  for  Cambridge 
University;  engaged  in  the  trial  of  Earl  and  Countess  of  Som- 
erset, et  al.y  for  poisoning  Sir  Thomas  Overbury. 

Shakspere,  at  Stratford,  shrewdly  secures  an  agreement  to 
indemnify  him  from  loss  in  his  old  investment  in  the  tithes. 
John  A.  Combe  dies  and  leaves  Shakspere  five  pounds ;  is  said 
to  have  composed  an  epitaph  for  his  benefactor,  which  Phil- 
lipps  discredits,  as  he  may  well  do  for  one  he  supposes  to  be  the 
author  of  the  "Shakespeare"  Works.  Shakspere  conspires  to 
acquire  certain  common  land  in  the  purlieus  of  Stratford  by 
enclosure.  Correspondence  and  notes  in  Greene's  diary  reveal 
the  actor's  interest  in  this  unjust  proceeding.  April  26,  1615, 
a  petitioner  with  others  to  Chancellor  Egerton  to  compel 

^  Lee,  A  Life,  etc.,  p.  267. 

626 


EPILOGUE 

Mathew  Bacon  to  deliver  up  certain  papers  relative  to  title 
of  the  Blackfriars  property. 

1616 

Bacon  is  made  Privy  Councillor.  Projects  a  compilation  and 
revision  of  the  laws  of  England. 

Shakspere  dies  after  an  illness  superinduced  by  having 
"drank  too  hard,"  leaving  will  covering  his  minutest  belong- 
ings, cutting  off  his  wife  with  "second  best  bed."  His  children 
were  reared  in  profound  ignorance,  yet  his  partisans  ask  us  to 
believe  that  he  wrote  that 

Ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God; 

Knowledge  the  wing  wherewith  we  fly  to  heaven. 

He  was  never  a  manager  of  a  theater,  and  the  particulars 
concerning  him  in  this  summary  may  all  be  found  in  Rowe, 
Malone,  Knight,  Phillipps,  Furnivall,  Lee,  and  other  authors 
of  biographies  of  him,  and  of  Bacon  in  Rawley,  Montagu,  and 
Spedding. 

With  respect  to  the  "Shakespeare"  Works,  it  is  proper  to 
here  repeat  that  seven  years  after  the  actor's  death,  they  were 
collected  and  printed  in  a  volume  —  the  First  Folio,  by  Jag- 
gard,  Bacon's  printer,  and  that  this  volume  contained,  of  the 
fifty-two  dramas  since  attributed  to  the  author  of  the  "  Shake- 
speare "  Works,  thirty-six,  twenty  of  which  had  never  before 
been  published,  and  several  never  before  known.  Many  of 
these  had  been  enlarged  by  additions  after  the  actor's  death, 
unmistakably  by  their  original  author,  and  all  of  them  are 
found  to  contain  hundreds  of  extracts  or  expressions  found  in 
Bacon's  notebook,  and  his  other  works.  This  is  so  significant 
that  to  escape  a  fatal  dilemma  some  critics  have  adopted  the 
impossible  theory  that  the  actor  and  philosopher  collaborated. 

We  have  endeavored  to  embody  in  this  summary  every 
fact  and  tradition  recorded  relative  to  the  Stratford  actor. 
The  reader  will  see  that,  despite  Mr.  Lee's  dogmatic  assertions 
to  the  contrary,  not  a  single  fact  of  importance  in  its  bearing 

627 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

upon  his  life  and  authorship  has  been  added  to  the  common 
stock  of  knowledge  regarding  him  which  existed  when  Nich- 
olas Rowe  wrote  his  misleading  "Life,"  and  we  ask,  Does  not 
what  we  have  here  recorded  point  unmistakably  to  the  con- 
clusion, that  when  he  purchased  his  home  in  Stratford  in  1597, 
he  took  up  his  permanent  residence  there,  making  an  occa- 
sional visit  to  London,  as  Phillipps  has  suggested,  and  that  from 
about  this  time  till  his  death  he  was  engaged  in  trade  as  his 
father  had  been,  dealing  in  land,  and  other  local  products, 
especially  wool,  as  the  wool  sack  upon  his  original  monument 
indicated  ?  Every  possible  effort  has  been  made  to  show  that  he 
continued  his  titular  profession,  but  beyond  the  enrollment  of 
his  name  in  two  or  three  instances  with  other  actors,  without 
assignment  of  parts,  which  might  have  been  done  if  he  were 
a  shareholder,  nothing  appears.  Phillipps,  impressed  by  the 
absence  of  knowledge  respecting  his  theatrical  employment, 
laboriously  traced  for  a  period  of  twenty  years,  ending  with 
the  date  of  his  death,  the  movements  of  the  company  with 
which  he  had  been  connected  in  London  —  "his  company"  — 
and  though  he  gathered  the  records  of  its  performances  in  all 
the  principal  towns  which  it  visited  during  that  period,  he  was 
obliged  to  acknowledge  that  his  name  nowhere  appeared 
among  the  names  of  his  former  associates;  indeed,  Greene's 
description  of  him  as  a  "factotum,"  or  man  of  all  work,  seems 
to  have  been  an  accurate  one,  which  his  subsequent  employ- 
ment by  Burbage  in  arranging  the  decorations  for  the  show  at 
Belvoir  Castle  in  1613  accentuates.  He  had  acquired  by  some 
means  a  few  hundred  pounds,  and  would  hardly  have  had  an 
incentive  to  remain  in  a  profession  in  which  "  the  top  of  his 
performance  was  the  ghost  in  Hamlet,"  and  according  to  John 
Davies,  "kingly  parts  in  sport."  Even  Oldys's  story  of  his 
impersonation  of  an  old  man,  Phillipps  dismisses  as  containing 
"several  discrepancies,"  without  "a  glimmering  of  truth."  ^ 
Though  forced  to  make  this  important  admission,  that  "there 

^  Outlines,  vol.  i,  p.  i88. 
628 


^      EPILOGUE 

is  no  reason  for  believing  that  he  was  ever  one  of  the  royal 
actors,"  he  has  to  console  his  readers  with  the  suggestion 
that  "we  may  be  sure  that  he  must  have  witnessed  either  at 
Stratford  or  London  some  of  the  inimitable  performances  of 
the  company's  star,  the  celebrated  Richard  Tarleton."  ^  Such 
consolation  would  be  funny  were  it  not  pitiable.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  oft-repeated  story  that  he  wrote  the 
"Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  at  the  Queen's  command ;  there 
is  nothing  to  sustain  it.  The  wonder  is  that  so  many  towering 
fabrics  have  been  reared  upon  such  flimsy  foundations. 

FINAL  WORDS 

As  we  have  not  related  in  our  sketch  of  Bacon  the  calum- 
nious stories  of  his  enemies,  ignorance  of  them  may  be  imputed 
to  us,  as  it  has  been  undeservedly  to  Spedding;  since,  with  the 
exception  of  a  salacious  bit  of  court  gossip  about  Mary  Fitton, 
which  requires  too  great  a  strain  upon  the  imagination  to 
connect  it  with  Bacon,  they  emanated  from  men  notoriously 
envious  and  malicious,  like  Wilson,  Weldon,  and  the  self- 
righteous  D'Ewes,  who  measured  others  by  his  own  insuffi- 
cient standards.  The  burden  of  testimony  is  all  against  them. 
Boener,  his  physician;  Rawley,  his  chaplain;  Bushell,  his 
disciple ;  Matthew,  his  alter  ego;  Pierre  Amboise,  Fuller,  and  a 
score  of  others  all  testify  to  his  indefectible  Christian  charac- 
ter. A  man  who  after  the  triumph  of  his  enemies  could  write 
to  Buckingham,  "  I  thank  God  I  have  overcome  the  bitterness 
of  this  cup  by  Christian  resolution,  so  that  worldly  matters 
are  but  mint  and  cumin,"  and  who  at  the  same  time  could 
make  the  prayer  elsewhere  produced,  which  Addison  declared 
to  be  "more  like  the  prayer  of  an  angel  than  a  man,"  cannot 
be  harmed  in  the  estimation  of  fair-minded  men  by  the  cryptic 
story  of  a  court  gossip,  or  the  unsupported  calumny  of  such 
men  as  we  have  named,  many  of  whose  other  utterances  have 
been  discredited  and  condemned  by  the  best  writers  since 

^  Outlines,  vol.  I,  p.  92. 
629 


THE  GREATEST  OF  LITERARY  PROBLEMS 

their  time.    Well  may  it  be  said  of  Francis  Bacon,  Virtus  vincit 
invidiam. 

The  letter  "S"  placed  at  the  end  of  this  book  as  a  colophon 
is  especially  interesting  as  having  been  used  by  Bacon  for  the 
initial  letter  of  the  dedication  of  the  French  Academic  of  1586, 
and  the  dedication  of  his  Essays  in  1625.  Mr.  Smedley,  who 
calls  attention  to  this  curious  fact,  asks  the  pregnant  question : 
*'  Did  Bacon  mark  his  first  work  on  philosophy,  and  his  last  book, 
by  printing  the  first  letter  in  each  from  the  same  block  ?"  —  for 
the  block  used  in  1586  is  the  very  one  used  thirty-nine  years 
later,  and  is  not  a  duplicate.  Since  Mr.  Smedley  does  not  ex- 
plain the  significance  of  the  design,  we  will  do  so. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  use  made  of  emblems  as 
vehicles  to  convey  instruction  to  simple  minds  long  before 
Bacon's  time,  and  of  the  use  he  made  of  them  in  marking  his 
books,  and  recording,  though  not  revealing,  to  the  uninitiated 
the  false  role  of  the  Stratford  actor.  Recognizing  in  emblems 
humble  aids  to  advance  knowledge,  he  employed  and  popu- 
larized them.  A  glance  at  Green's  book  shows  their  extensive 
use  in  the  "Shakespeare"  Works. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  this  rude  letter  "S"  is 
wreathed  with  flowering  vines  supporting  vases  of  fruits  and 
flowers :  — 

"^j  the  vine  brought  I  forth  pleasant  savour, 
and  my  flowers  are  the  fruit  of  honour  and  riches, 
I  am  the  mother  of  fair  love,  and  fear,  and  knowledge  and  hope,^^ 

At  the  base,  on  the  right,  is  Pan,  the  gross  deity  of  Nature, 
with  butterfly  wings  all  too  light  to  lift  him  from  earth;  on  the 
left  a  man  wearing  a  robe  and  girdle  (emblem  of  righteous- 
ness), while  above  each  shoulder  is  a  strong  wing  (emblem  of 
knowledge);  ''For  knowledge  is  the  zuing  by  which  we  fly  to 
heaven''  Between  them  is  a  fish,  the  Christian  symbol.  The 
man  on  the  left,  pointing  to  this  emblem,  is  earnestly  exhort- 
ing the  man  before  him;  above  them  is  a  bell  to  arouse  atten- 

630 


EPILOGUE 

tion.  The  meaning  of  this  rude  and  simple  emblem  is  evident ; 
namely,  the  instruction  of  the  animalized  man  in  spiritual 
knowledge;  the  work  to  which  Bacon's  life  was  devoted  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career.  This  interpretation  is 
in  exact  accord  with  ancient  emblem  lore. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


\ofc  io  ^SiiCu^tajm^ 


aMVhCts9a 

Ttojessor  William  Ai,  ware. and  ^\o^i^eocand€t  JMUtffomcn-jjsc ;  «*^z.t/«« , 
f ^  ^dc  ^jfratiam  oji/ic  ^oKzian  ^rary ; f/ie  ^i^/l'cMa  St^ttmfur^^ 
^^i^tin/iel  (kenliajtti',^i('^azimate0orefue^f^^ 
[ict/ice£,  T/ie^adut;  iSi(S([Uca%acimal,Ma<trif,Sjain.'^^r.C/iam 
lifiMrra^t(rf0xrcrd6}nii?ttjiH^j  wGmals  a  icrumeyio  CamprUpe  in  m^ 
Mix  i/[e:^riHi/iInstum^  '=^arLfWot}Lrr%j/jL%Uiam^. 
dmelky;  flie  laic  Sir  Slmfi^urfiinC-Quretus,  Mr^ic£dlcrj^ixt 

%on\ 9ranvitttQ,QmriXnifam Ssc^  ^CvKatotl&^tey^  jlenty Sicvm 
^^ndand^anl ejfcciaCIj  i(r  Jjlt.  Blwatt'^cnliam  (if'yC^w&djmJlan. 

Jor  His  a<[mirai;le  zJnIex, 

^ifTliave  ama^ymJ^S'witli/iariii/ienafcrJotJvzdy 
iMfom£is  opinion  df/ic-  pnu^Actsifi  imwf/ed. 

The  above  note  is  printed  in  facsimile  letters  taken  from  Bacon's  own  biformed 
alphabet  on  page  532.  By  following  his  rule  there  given,  any  one  can  easily  decipher 
the  message  which  the  author  has  concealed  in  it.  It  is  a  pretty  experiment,  and  will 
repay  the  reader  for  the  few  moments  he  may  devote  to  it.  The  simple  rule  is  to  copy 
it,  separate  the  letters  in  groups  of  five,  and  place  a  dot  or  mark  under  each  letter  found 
in  the  b  or  second  font.  The  first  group  will  be  found  to  signify  B,  the  second  A,  and  so 
on  to  the  end.  The  fact  that  the  letters  in  which  this  note  is  printed  are  facsimiles  of 
those  used  by  Bacon  himself  in  his  De  Augmentis  to  illustrate  his  biliteral  cipher  proves 
beyond  question  its  employment  by  him. 


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B,  G.  H.  P.  Who  wrote  the  Plays  and  Poems  known  as  "The  Works 
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635 


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637 


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3^:554- 
Shackford,  C.  C.  Authorship  of  Shakespere  and  Lord  Bacon.  No.  Am. 

Rev.,^S'¥)^' 
Shakespeare  In  Modern  Thought.    Ibid.,  Boston, 
Oct.,  1857. 
Shakespeare.  Alleged  Non-Existence  of  Shakespeare.  National  Re- 
view, London,  July,  1857. 
The  Shakespearian  Crotchet-Mongers.   Booklore,  Lon- 
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Shakespeare  and  his  Latest  Expositor.  Westm.  Rev.,  178:211;  Aug., 

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Shakspere  and  Bacon.   Knowledge,  ii:i6. 
Shakespeare-Bacon  Controversy.  Scribner*s  Monthly,  1875. 
Shakespeare  Discoveries.  Outlook,  94:655. 
Shakespeare  or  Bacon.  New  York  Herald,  Sept.  9-1 1,  1874. 
Shakespeare  Puzzle.  Harper's,  119:313. 
Shakespeare's  Essays.  Living  Age,  232:573. 
Shakespeare's  Secret  and  Bacon's  "Promus."    (An  article  In  Allge- 

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INDEX 


INDEX 


A.,E    63s.    .. 
A.,  B.  J.,  xxvii. 

A ,W.W.,653. 

Abbott,  E.  A.,  160,  161,  297,  332. 

Aberdeen,  514. 

Acrostics,  430,  432,  637,  658. 

Adams,  John  Stokes,  653. 

Adamson,  Prof.  Robert,  346. 

Addenbrooke,  John,  57,  624. 

Addison,  Joseph,  430,  629. 

Adee,  A.  A.,  653. 

Adee,  David  Graham,  653. 

"Advancement  of  Learning,"  436,  478,  492, 

498,  509,  548,  554,  616,  623. 
"Advertisement  Touching  Controversies," 

617. 
Adriatic  Sea,  494,  495. 
iEneas,  506. 
iEschylus,  477. 
JEsop,  Clodius,  75. 
Agassiz,  J.  L.  R.,  293. 
Aizen,  N.,  653. 
"Ajax,"  635. 
Albanact,  171,  172. 
Albania,  172. 

Albertus  Magnus,  302,  310. 
Albigenses,  the,  406,  408. 
Albion,  172. 

Alciati,  Alciatus,  415,  503,  506. 
Allen,  Charles,  635,  653. 
Alleyn,  Edward,  75,  106,  135,  155. 
Allibone,  S.  A.,  653. 
"All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,"  104,  620. 
Alpine  Provinces,  the,  406. 
Alsace,  635. 
Alvor,  P.,  635. 
Amboise,  Pierre,  349,  629. 
Amboyna  Island,  551. 
America,  xii. 
"Americanisms,"  548. 
"Amoretti,"  448,  449,  451,  452. 
Anacreon,  470. 
Anagrams,  426,    428,  429,  430,  640,    641, 

645,  648. 
"Anatomy  of  Melancholy,"  see  "Treatise 

of  Melancholie." 
Anders,  H.  R.  D.,  51,  52. 
Anderson,  M.  B.,  653. 
Andrews,  Rev.  Lancelot,  441. 
"Andronicus,"  478. 
Aneau,  Bartholomew,  503. 
Angelo,  Michael,  459. 
Anne,  Queen,  450. 
"Anne  Boleyn,"  527,  566. 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  496. 
Anshelmus,  Thomas,  414. 


!  "Antiquary,"  635. 
"Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  104, 152. 
Antony,  Mark,  107, 108. 
Antrim,  County  of,  596. 
"Apology  for  Actors,"  90. 
"Appollonius  Tyrias,The  Romance  of,"i35. 
Apsley,  Sir  Allen,  490. 
Aquila,  the  Bishop  of,  9. 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  302. 
Aragon,  495. 

Archer, ,  481. 

Arcite,  188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195. 

Ardbracken,  609. 

Arden,  Alice,  180,  183,  184. 

Arden,  Mary,  34,  37,  153,  259. 

"Arden  of  Feversham,"  iii,  118,  178,  180, 

181,  183. 
Ardens,  the,  34. 
"Argenis,"  The,  413,  583,  584,  585,  586, 

589,590,591,592. 
"Argumentis,"  see  "De  Argumentis." 
Ariosto,  Ludovico,  76,  455. 
Aristotle,  301,  305,  339,  340,  343,  356,  506, 

509. 
Armada,  The,  10,  139,  317,  525,  549,  589. 
"Arraignment  of  Paris,  The,"  1 1 1, 470, 475. 
"Art  of  English  Poesie,  The,"  584. 
Arthurian  Romances,  The,  14. 
Artois,  Count  of,  209,  210,  218,  220. 
Arundel,  Earl  of,  8,  372. 
Asbies  lawsuit,  the,  69. 
Ascham,  Roger,  41,  42. 
Ashbourne  Free  Grammar  School,  234. 
Ashbourne  Portrait,  234,  235. 
Asher,  David,  653. 
Ashhurst,  R.L,  635. 
Ashley,  Mrs.  Katharine,  3. 
Ashton,  Rev.  Abadie,  601,  602,  603,  604, 

AsS;,«o. 

"Astrophel,"  452. 

"As  You  Like  It,"  96,  104,  514,  515,  526. 

Asvins,  411,  412. 

Ate,  171. 

Athens,  126. 

Atkinson,  A.  R.,  653. 

Atkinson,  H.  G.,  635,  654. 

Atlantic  Ocean,  339. 

Aubrey,  John,  28,  38,  39,  40,  99,  245,  297, 

460. 
Audley,  218,  220. 
"Augmentis  Scientiarum,"  424. 
Augustus,  2d  Duke  of   Brunswick-Lunae- 

berg,  418,  419,  635. 
Aulis,  506. 
Austria,  494,  495. 


667 


INDEX 


Aylesbury,  Lord,  6ii. 
Aysshome,  57. 

B.,  G.  H.  P.,  635. 

Bacon,  Lady  Anne,  304,  305,  327,  369,  382, 
443,  448,  SI  I,  592,  598,  615,  616,  619, 
622. 

Bacon,  Anthony,  304,  305,  309,  311,  314, 
3i8»  370,  372,  373,  382,  398, 409, 419,  510, 
511, 521, 604, 60s,  608,  616, 617, 618, 619, 
620,  622,  662. 

Bacon  Creping,  420. 

Bacon,  Delia,  xxvi,  xxvii,  635, 636,  639, 6s4, 
664. 

Bacon,  Sir  Edmund,  443. 

Bacon  family,  the,  409,  443,  488. 

Bacon,  Francis,  Baron Verulam, Viscount  St. 
Albans,  xx,  xxii,  xxv,  xxvi,  xxvii,  xxix,  7, 19, 
2S,  28,  30,  31,  33,  75, 1^.  78, 79, 87,  89, 92, 
104, 128, 129, 130,  IS4, 15s,  156, 19s,  196, 
207,  222,  236, 249,  2SI,  272,  273,  274,  276, 
292,  294, 29s,  296,  297,  298,  299, 300,  301, 
302, 303,  304, 30s,  306,  307,  308,  309,  310, 
311, 312,  313,  314,31s,  316, 317,  318,  319, 
320, 321,  322,  323, 324,  32s,  326,  327,  328, 
329, 330,  331,  332,  333,  334,  336,  337,  339, 
340,  341,  342,  343,  344,  34S,  346,  347,  348, 
349,  350,  3SI,  352,  353,  354,  35^,  357,  358, 
359,  360, 361, 362,  363,  364,  36s,  367, 369, 
370, 371,  372, 373,  374,  375,  376,  377,  378, 
379, 381, 386, 388,  389,  390,  391,  393,  394, 
395, 396, 397,  398,  399, 400, 40i,  404, 406, 
408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 41S,  416, 
417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 42s, 
426, 428, 429, 432, 433, 434, 43S,  436, 437, 
438, 444, 447, 450, 458, 4S9, 462, 463, 464, 
46s,  469, 474, 477, 482, 483, 484, 486, 488, 
489, 490, 491, 492,  496, 498, 499,  soo,  505, 
506,  507,  508,  509,  510,  511,  513, 514,  515, 
S16,  S17,  518,  519,  520,  521,  S22,  S23,  524, 
S26,  S28,  S30,  533,  534,  535,  53^,  538,  S42, 
544,  545,  547,  548,  549, 550,  552,  S53,  554, 
556,  558,  561,  562,  s68,  STi^,  s8i,  583, 584, 
585, 586,  S9I,  594,  596,  597,  598,  S99, 607, 
610, 611, 61S,  616,  617,  618,  619, 620, 621, 
622, 623, 624, 62s,  626, 627,  629, 630,  631, 
634, 636, 637, 638, 639,  640, 641, 642, 643, 
644, 64s,  646, 647,  648,  649,  6so,  6s I,  6S2, 
653, 654, 655, 656,  6s7, 658, 6s9, 660, 661, 
662,  663. 

"Bacon  Journal,  The,"  636. 

Bacon,  Mathew,  627. 

Bacon,  Sir  Nicholas,  303,  304,  309,  312,  329, 
409, 443, 512,  518,  ss6,  sn,  S98,  599, 615, 
616. 

Bacon,  Roger,  302,  303,  340,  428. 

Bacon  Society,  The,  583,  636,  658. 

Bacon,  T.,  636. 

"Baconiana,"  636. 

"Baconian  Facts,"  636. 

Baconian  Heresy,  xxvii. 

Baconians,  xxvii,  90,  92,  118, 128,  136,  154, 
262, 278, 286,  293, 296,  505,  549,  550,  573, 


578,  579,  581,  582, 649, 652,  653, 654, 656, 

658,  659,  660,  662,  663. 
Bahamas,  the,  552. 

Baif, ,  307. 

Bale,  Bishop  John,  139. 

Ball,  B.W.,  654. 

Baltic  Sea,  494. 

Baltimore,  Lord,  534. 

Bank's  horse,  131. 

Banks,  Robert,  636. 

Banquo,  514. 

Bantam,  551. 

Barbados,  552. 

Barclay,  John,    11,    388,    389,   503,   584, 

585. 
Barker,  Robert,  2. 
Barlow,  William,  601,  604. 
Barnes,  Barnaby,  68. 
Barrett,  L.,  654. 
Barrett,  T.  S.,  636. 

Barry,  Mrs. ,  230. 

"Bartholomew  Fair,"  116. 

Batchelor,  H.  Crouch,  636. 

Bates,  G.  F.,  90,  91. 

Baudoin,  Jean,  415,  424. 

Baxter,  James  Phinney,  320,  444,  544. 

Bayley,  Harold,  408,  409,  634,  636. 

Baylis,  S.  M.,  636. 

Baynes, ,  31. 

Beale, ,  xxiii. 

Beard,  C,  408. 

Beaumont,  Francis,  22,  94,  389. 

Becker,  Dr. ,  243. 

Beeching,  H.  C,  636,  654. 
Beer,  T.  H.  de,  654. 
Beerbohm,  M.,  636. 
Beethoven,  Ludwig  van,  291. 
Begley,  W.,  519,  583,  584,  636. 
Beisley,  S.,  29. 
Bell,  John  W.,  654. 
Belleau,  Remy,  87. 
Belvoir  Castle,  232,  626,  628. 
Benevolo,  457. 
Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  250. 
Benton,  M.  B.,  654. 
Bermudas,  the,  625. 

Bertillon, ,  249. 

Betterton,  Thomas,  230. 

Beziers,  407. 

Bible,  the,  20,  21,  51. 

Bickell,  Mr. ,  233,  634. 

Bickley,  F.  B.,  644. 

Bicknell,  George  A.,  654. 

Bidford,  45. 

"Biform  Figure  of  Nature,"  625. 

Birch,  Thomas,  311,  510,  521,  601. 

Birmingham  Central  Literary  Association, 

654- 
Birrell,  A.,  655. 

"Birth  of  Merlin,  The,"  iii,  178. 
Bishopton,  57. 

Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  E.  L.,  63. 
Black,  H.,  655. 


668 


INDEX 


Black,  Will.,  i8i,  182,  183,  184. 

Bleibtreu,  K.,  636. 

Blomberg,  Adelheid  Maria  von,  636,  655. 

Blount,  Edward,  109,  597. 

Blount  family,  the,  503. 

Boaden,  James,  226,  227,  229,  230,  236. 

Boas,  Frederick  S.,  130,  137,  138,  139,  485. 

Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  430. 

Bodine,  John,  388,  389. 

Bodleian  Library,  The,  311,  634. 

Bodley,  Sir  Thomas,  311. 

Boener,  Peter,  xxii,  297,  318,  338,  349,  381, 
629. 

Bogholm,  N.,  637. 

Bohemia,  493,  494,  495,  496,  497. 

Bohemia,  King  of,  494. 

Bohemia,  Queen  of,  496,  497. 

Bohn,  Henry  H.,  636. 

Bohtlingk,  A,,  655. 

Boleyn,  Anne,  527. 

Bolingbroke,  Lord,  548. 

Bolton,  Charles  K.,  634. 

Bompas,  George  C.  581,  582,  583,  637. 

Bonitus, ,  416. 

Books,  number  of  in  Stratford,  42,  51,  61, 
158. 

Booth,  Ben  Haworth,  637. 

Booth,  William  Stone,  249,  250,  432,  433, 
434,  634,  637,  658. 

Bordeaux,  318,  421. 

Bordeaux,  Commission  des  Archives  Muni- 
cipals, 422. 

Bormann,  August  Edwin,  361,  637,  655. 

Bormann,  Edwin,  361,  637,  655. 

Bostelman,  Lewis  F.,  655. 

Boston  Athenaeum,  634. 

Boston  Public  Library,  406,  634. 

Boswell,  Sir  William,  357,  358. 

Bos  worth.  Battle  of,  33,  196. 

Bourne,  G.  H.  P.,  638. 

Bowditch,  Charles  P.,  419,  420,  429,  638. 

Boydell,  John,  229. 

Boyle,  Elizabeth,  453. 

Boyle,  P.  U.,  655. 

Boyle,  Sir  Richard,  453,  638. 

Bradford,  A.  B.,  655. 

Bradley,  Isaac,  655. 

Brandes,  Georg,  xxvii,  62,  70,81,  150,151, 
179,  184,  185,  567,  655. 

Brausewetter,  Artur,  655. 

Brantford,  10. 

Bray,  Charles,  638. 

Bretagne,  218. 

Brewster,  Sir  David,  300. 

Brien,  Murrogh  O.,  453,  454. 

Bridges,  Sir  E.,  120. 

Bright,  T.,  487,  488,  554. 

Bringern, ,  395,  396. 

Briquet,  C.  M.,  408. 

Broadbrim,  655. 

Brooke,  Robert,  10. 

Brown,  Carlton,  430,  431,  480. 

Browne, ,  505. 


Browne,  Henry  Janvrin,  638. 

Browning,  Robert,  62. 

Bruce,  John,  7,  607,  608,  609. 

Brunswick-Lunaeberg,  Duke  of,  see  Augus- 
tus 2d. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  327,  342,  343. 

Brutus,  171,  172,  174. 

Bryan,  Murrough  O.,  454. 

Bryde, ,  288. 

Buccellati,  Dr.  Antonio,  638. 

Buchanan,  George,  514. 

Bucke,  Richard  Maurice,  638,  655. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  see  Villiers,  George. 

Buckingham,  Lady,  see  Villiers,  Katherine. 

Bucks  County,  509. 

Budeus,  William,  388,  389. 

Buffone,  Carlo,  78. 

Bulgakov,  O.,  655. 

Bull,  John,  655. 

Bullen,  A.  H.,  469,  470,  478. 

Bulloch,  John,  638. 

"Bunglers  in  Criticism,"  62. 

Bunten,  Mrs.  A.  Chambers,  638. 

Burbage,  Cuthbert,  94. 

Burbage,  James,  50,  52,  65,  235,  617. 

Burbage,  Richard,  52,  55,  82,  84,  95,  105, 
155,  231,  232,  233,  618,  620,  626,  628. 

Burbage's  Company,  53,  618. 

Burbages,  The,  52,  66,  112,  127. 

Burger,  C.  P.,  Jr.,  655.  , 

Burghley,  Lady,  see  Cecil,  Mildred. 

Burghley,  Lord,  see  Cecil,  William. 

Burghley  Papers,  611. 

Burgoyne,  F.  J.,  638. 

Burgundy,  Duke  of,  490,  491. 

Burgundy,  Mary  of,  495. 

Burleigh, ,  55°,  55 1- 

Burnham,  Alice,  322. 

Burnley,  438. 

Burns,  Robert,  63,  158. 

Burr,  W.  H.,  638. 

Burrage,  Champlin,  634. 

Burton,  Robert,  438,  486,  488,  527,  554, 
583. 

Bushell,  Thomas,  xxii,  58,  318,  336,  337, 
484,  629,  638. 

Butterfield,  W.  A.,  250. 

C,  R.  C,  656. 
Cabot,  Samuel,  419. 
Cadiz  Expedition,  606. 

Cadurcis, ,  xxiv. 

Caernarvon,  Marquis  of,  230. 
Calais,  306. 
Caldecott,  H.  S.,  638. 
Caldwell,  George  S.,  638. 
Calf  of  Man,  Island  of,  336. 
Calkins,  E.  A.,  656. 
Calthrop,  Annette,  645. 
Calvert,  A.  F.,  638. 
Camber,  171. 

Cambridge,  66,  79,  103,  305,  331,  342,  343, 
448,  457,  458,  488,  508,  509,  597,  634. 


669 


INDEX 


Cambridge,  Benet  College,  480. 
Cambridge,  Christ  Church,  486. 
Cambridge,  Magdalen  College,  13,  6l2. 
Cambridge,  Pembroke  Hall,  441. 
Cambridge,  St.  John's  College,  331,  388, 

479- 

Cambridge  students,  83,  84. 

Cambridge,  Trinity  College,  305,  331. 

Cambridge  University,  121,  441,  442,  626. 

Camden,  William,  7,  11,  13,  420,  428,  445, 
556,  592,  596,  599,  600,  601,  60s. 

Campbell,  Lord  John,  21,  22,  24,  31,  297, 
319,  320,  323,  324,  325,  326,  327,  328,  329, 
330, 332,  335,  345,  349,  35i,  35^,  620. 

Candler,  H.,  656. 

Canterbury,  47,  480,  515. 

Cantor,  Prof.  G.,  xxviii,  639. 

Capell,  Edward,  44,  130,  208,  209,  229,  230. 

Cap  of  Maintenance,  The,  421. 

"Cardenio,"  iii. 

Carew  Papers,  440,  454. 

Carey,  see  Cary. 

Carinthia,  494,  495. 

Carleton,  Sir  Dudley,  612. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  361,  362. 

Carniola,  495. 

Carrier,  Moritz,  342. 

Carter,  Thomas,  20,  639. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  225. 

Cartwright, ,  233. 

Carus,  P.,  656. 

Cary,  Carey,  Sir  Ed.,  597,  599. 

Cary,  Sir  Robert,  612. 

Cary,  Thomas,  389. 

Casaubon,  Isaac,  388,  389. 

Cassel,  392. 

Castile,  495. 

Castle,  Edward  J.,  490,  639,  656. 

Castle,  William,  39,  40,  45. 

Caswell,  J.  B.,  639. 

Catesby, ,  155. 

Cathari,  the,  406. 

Catherine  de  Medici,  590. 

Cattell,  Charles  Cockbill,  635,  639. 

Catulus,  130. 

Caverly  Hall,  176. 

Cazauran,  A.  R.,  656. 

Cecil,  Mildred,  Lady  Burghley,  310,  488, 
618,  621. 

Cecil,  Robert,  557. 

Cecil,  William,  Lord  Burghley,  5,  6, 8, 9, 10, 
12,  309,  310,  311,  312,  314,  315,  316,  317, 
321,  334,  337, 458,  550,  551,  597,  598,  599, 
600,  601,  602,  603,  604,  605,  606,  607. 

Cecils,  the,  597. 

"Cerimon,"  639. 

"Certain  Considerations  Touching  the 
Pacification  of  the  Church,"  623. 

Chalmers,  George,  254. 

Chamberlain,  John,  453. 

Chambers, ,  470, 477. 

Chandas  family,  the,  228,  229. 

Charges,  Sir  Thomas,  230. 


Charlecot,  43. 

Charles  I  of  England,  225,  450,  500,  504, 
588,  613. 

Charles  H  of  England,  55,111,  230, 442. 

Charles  IV  of  Bohemia,  496. 

Charles  V  of  Germany,  495. 

Chartley,  594. 

Chatterton,  Thomas,  267. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  14,  129,  443. 

Chernigovetz,  O.,  639. 

Cheshire,  34. 

Chester,  Col.  Joseph  L.,  116,  484. 

Chester,  Robert,  431. 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  656. 

Chettle,  Henry,  80,  84. 

Chiarini,  Giuseppe,  639. 

China,  xxvii. 

Chips, ,  488. 

Chooyko,  B.,  656. 

Chubb,  E.  W.,  656. 

Church,  Rev.  R.  W.,  19,  346,  639. 

Churcher,  William  Henry,  639. 

Churchill, ,  328. 

Cibber,  CoUey,  656. 

Cibber,  Theophilus,  50. 

Cicero,  75,.  34^,  533,  577,  57.8,  579. 

Ciphers,  Cipher  Story,  xxviii,  163,  413,  419, 
521,  530,  532,  533,  534,  536,  544,  547,  548, 
549,  551,  552,  553,  554,  555,  558,  559,  561, 
562,  564,  567,  568,  571,  572,  573,  574,  577, 
579,  580,  581,  582,  583,  609,  611,  614,  634, 
640,  641,  645, 646,  647,  652,  655,  656, 657, 
659,  660,  662,  663,  664. 

Citeaux,  the  abbot  of,  407. 

Claredon,  160. 

.Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of,  612. 

Clark,  Andrew,  39. 

Clark,  Edward  Gordon,  639,  655,  656. 

Clark,  H.  A.,  137. 

Clarke,  Sir  Edward,  108. 

Clarke,  J.  F.,  656. 

Clarke,  Mary  Cowden,  511,  583. 

Clayton,  John,  57,  622. 

Celia, ,  21,  90,  156,  159,  292,  296. 

Clemens,  S.  L.,  54,  639. 

Clifford,  Ann,  444. 

Clopton,  Sir  Hugh,  262. 

Close,  R.  C,  656. 

Close  Rolls,  The,  255. 

Cochin,  Henry,  656. 

Codyre,  J.  L.,  656. 

"Cogitations  de  Natura  Rerum,"  500. 

Coke,  Sir  Edmund,  313,  316,  322,  323,  324, 
328,  329,  332. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  xxiv,  132,  133, 
137,  160,  185,  567. 

Colin,  see  Spenser,  Edmund. 

Collier,  J.  Payne,  64, 107,  116,  119, 126,  133, 
134,  135,  146,  160,  208,  439,  440. 

Collins,  J.  Churton,  xxvii,  31,  \i,  42,  99, 
119,  128,  158,  492,  534,  620,  639,  650. 

Collins,  Francis,  22,  277,  279,  288,  292. 

Cologne,  Virgins  of,  266. 


670 


INDEX 


Colomb,  Colonel,  639. 

"Colours  of  Good  and  Evil,"  620. 

Combe  estate,  155,  625. 

Combe,  John  A.,  626. 

Combe,  William,  45,  58. 

"Comedy  of  Errors,  The,"  95,  104,  127, 

129,  130,  131,617. 
"Common  Conditions,"  14. 
"Complaynt  of  Scotland,"  429. 
"Complaints,"  574. 
"Comus,"  170,  353,  354- 
"Concealed  Poet,  A,"  30. 
Condell,  Henry,  52,  53,  74,  99,  100,  loi, 

102,  103,  no,  113,  144,  185,  222,  561. 
"Confessio  Amantis,"  135. 
Congreve,  William,  160. 
"Contention,  The,"  98,  143,  146,  147,  148, 

412,  616. 
Conway,  Moncure  D.,  639. 
Cooke,  Sir  Anthony,  304,  511. 
Copenhagen  Bibliothek,  634. 
Copernicus,  302,  342,  343. 
Corbett,  F.  Saint-John,  656. 
Cork  County,  452,  461. 
"Coriolanus,"  104. 
"Cornelia,"  485. 
Cornwall,  Duchy  of,  322. 
Cotes,  Thomas,  536. 
Cotgrave,  J.,  639. 
Courthope,  W.  J.,  147,  148. 
Courtneys,  Nicholas,  462. 
Coverly,  Sir  Richard,  229. 
Cowper,  William,  586. 
Cowrte,  Richard,  38. 
Cox,  S.  A.,  639. 
Coxe,  John  Redman,  24. 
Cranmer,  George,  89. 
Crawford,  Charles,  371,  640. 
Crecy,  Battle  of,  218. 
Creon,  186,  188. 
Crispinus,  81. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  225,  661. 
Cromwell,  Lord  Thomas,  167,  168,  169. 
Crosby,  Ernest,  63. 
Crosby,  Joseph,  656. 
Cryptograms,  411,  418,  647,  655,  661. 
Cryptographers,  418. 
Cuffe,  Henry,  xxiii. 
Cunningham,  Granville  C,  460,  584,  634, 

640. 
Cunningham,  Peter,  106,  240. 
Cutting  Ball,  479. 
"Cymbeline,"  21,  104,  625. 

Dall,  Caroline  H.,  640. 

Dana, ,  xxvi. 

Dante,  250,  357. 
Danvers,  Sir  John,  7. 

Darcy, ,  600. 

Darwin,  Charles  R.,  663. 

D'Aubigne ,  307. 

D'Avenant,  John,  55. 

D'Avenant,  Sir  William,  55, 69, 230, 232, 389. 


Davenport,  Rob.,  in. 

David,  King  of  Scotland,  210. 

"David  and  Bethsabe,"  475. 

Davidson,  Prof. ,  656. 

Davidson,  T.,  656. 

Davies,  Sir  John,  318,  346,  363,  377,  43©, 
506,  622,  628. 

Davies,  Rev.  Richard,  40. 

Davis, ,  608. 

Davis,  C.  K.,  640. 

Davison,  William,  550,  551,  597,  606. 

Dawbarn,  C.  J.  C,  640. 

Dawson,  E.  A.,  640. 

"De  Augmentis,"  76,  341,  361,  498,  515, 
522,  530,  533,  544,  561,  577,  578,  581. 

Dekker,  Thomas,  16,  80,  121,  149. 

Delius,  Nicholas,  617,  618,  623. 

Demblon,  Celestin,  640,  656. 

Democritus  Jr.,  486. 

Denham,  Edward,  634. 

Denmark,  120,  121,  123. 

"Dense  and  Rare,"  489,  625. 

De  Peyster,  J.  W.,  640,  646. 

Deptford,  481. 

Derby,  218. 

Derbyshire,  234. 

Descartes,  Rene,  300. 

Desmond,  Sir  John,  461. 

Devereux  family,  the,  594,  609. 

Devereux,  Lady  Frances,  592,  594,  596, 
612,  613. 

Devereux,  Robert,  Earl  of  Essex,  68,  89, 
15s,  167,  318,  319,  320,  322,  333,  334, 
338,  372,  373,  374,  375, 44i,  442, 443,  455, 
519,  521,  525,  556,  559,  560,  561,  566,  568, 
596,  597,  598,  599,  600,  601, 602,  603, 604, 
605, 606,  607, 608,  609, 610, 611, 612,  613, 
614,  618,  619,  621,  622,  646. 

Devereux,  Walter,  556,  594,  598. 

Devereux,  Walter  Bouchier,  594,  610. 

"Device  of  an  Indian  Prince,"  619. 

Devil  in  Music,  The,  501. 

Devizes,  10. 

Devonshire,  xx. 

D'Ewes,  Sir  Symonds,  629. 

Dicke,  W.  R.,  610. 

Dickens,  Charles,  xxv,  xxviii,  664. 

Dickens's  Novels,  656. 

Dido,  506. 

"Dido,"  468. 

Digges,  Leonard,  92,  136,  536, 539,  542,  581. 

Dingley,  Thomas,  442, 445,  446. 

Diocletian,  406. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  xxiv,  xxviii. 

Dixon,  T.  S.  E.,  640, 657. 

Dixon,  W.  Hepworth,  298. 

Donne,  Dr.  John,  89. 

Donnelly,  Ignatius,  253,  522,  640,  645,646, 
647,  651,  653,  654,  655,  656,  657,  659,  661, 
662,  663,  664. 

Doran,  John,  511. 

Dorman,  Jane,  see  Feria,  Jane  Dormer, 
Duchess  of. 


671 


INDEX 


Dorset,  Countess  of,  443,  444. 

"Double  Falsehood,  The,"  in. 

Douse,  T.  Le  M.,  640. 

Dowdell,  John,  40. 

Dowden,  Edward,  63,  128,  463,  657. 

Dowe,  Anna,  10. 

DowHng,  R.,  640. 

Downing,  Charles,  20,  21. 

Downton,  Thomas,  167. 

Doyle,  J.  T.,  657. 

Drake,  Sir  Francis,  xx,  9,  300. 

Drake,  Dr.  Nathan,  146,  147. 

Drayton,  228. 

Drayton,  Michael,  16,  40,  49,  66,  94,  107, 

138,  167,  389. 
"Dreams,  My,"  459. 
"Dr.  Faustus,"  see  "Faustus." 
Droeshout,  Martin,  72,  73,  226,   228,  229, 

231,  234,  236, 241,  248,  249,  250,  251,  277, 

308. 
Drummond,  William,  71,  y6,  89,  493. 
Drury,  Sir  William,  454. 
Dryden,  John,  135,  230,  231,  355. 
Dryerre,  H.,  657. 

Du  Bartus,  Salustirus,  74,  306,  307. 
Du  Bellay,  Joachim,  307. 
Dublin,  Rolls  Office,  460. 
Dudley,  Lord  Robert,  Earl  of  Leicester,  4, 

8,  9,  10,  II,  312,  314,  318,  425,  426,  440, 

445, 459,  550,  551,  553,  554,  555,  557,  562, 

566,  567, 568,  569,  570,  593,  594,  595,  596, 

597,  598,610,611. 
Dugdale,  Sir  William,  246,  247,  248,  252. 
Duggan,  J.,  640. 

Diihring, ,  298,  340. 

"Duke  Humphrey,"  in. 

Dulwich  Collection,  232. 

Dulwich  College,  75,  106,  135,  233, 634. 

Duncie,  Edw.,  440. 

Duyckinck,  George  Long,  140. 

Dyce,  Alexander,  71, 175, 469, 479, 482,  548. 

Dysart,  Earl,  612. 


E.,  C,  30. 

Earldom, 


234. 


East  India  Company,  551. 

East  Smithfield,  438. 

"Ebb  and  Flow  of  the  Sea,  The,"  489,  499, 

625. 

Ebsworth, ,  89. 

"Eclogues,"  544,  561. 

Edmburgh,  71. 

"Edwardl,"ii8,i95. 

Edward  II,  King  of  England,  197, 198, 199, 

200,  201,  202,  203,  204,  205,  206. 
"Edward  II,"  144,  145,  195,  196,  207,  208, 

209,  222. 
Edward  III,  King  of  England,  209,210,211, 

212,  213,  215,  216,  217,  218,  221. 
"Edward  III,"  178, 195,  208, 209, 222,  566, 

568. 
"Edward  IV,"  195,209. 
Edward  VI,  King  of  England,  2,  3,  304,  589. 


Edward,  Prince,  511. 

Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  568. 

Edwards,  Richard,  478. 

Edwards,  W.  H.,  640. 

Egerton,  Sir  Philip  de  Malpas  Grey,  461. 

Egerton,  Sir  Thomas,  324,  626. 

Elgin,  Lord  of,  29. 

Eliot,  John,  336. 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  511. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  xxi,  i,  2,  3, 4,  5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 
II,  12, 13, 14, 15, 47,  55,  63, 119, 150,  154, 
208,  236,  286,  296, 301,  304,  305,  309,  310, 
311,312,313,315,316,318,319,320,321, 
332, 333, 371, 372,  373,  374,  375,  376,  379, 
392, 394,  397, 408, 409, 411, 421, 425, 426, 
430, 438, 450, 451, 455, 458, 460, 461, 462, 
470, 478, 480,  506,  512, 519,  521,  523,  551, 
553,  554, 556,  557,  560,  561,  562,  566,  567, 
568,  569,  570,  571,  573,  574,  586,  587,  588, 
591,  594,  596,  597,  598,  599, 601,  603, 606, 
607, 608, 609, 610, 611,  612,  613, 616,  618, 
619,  620,  621,  622,  629,  642. 

Elizabeth's  ring,  599,  611,  612,  613,  614. 

EUacombe,  Henry  Nicholson,  29. 

Ellacombe,  Henry  N.,  29. 

Ellesmere,  Lord,  649. 

Elson,  Louis  C,  29. 

Ely  House,  238. 

Elze,  Karl,xxvii,  81, 116, 117,161,257,258, 
493,  641,  657. 

Emblems,  410,  415,  416,  630. 

Emelia,  187,  189,  190,  191,  193,  195. 

Emerson,  J.  M.,  640. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  xxiv,  348. 

Empedocles,  xxv. 

Ems,  430. 

"Eneid,"  561. 

Engel,  Dr.  Eduard,  xxvii,  639, 641. 

England,  xx,  xxi,  xxii,  xxvi,  i,  4,  5,  10,  17, 
33,41,  61,65,  83,  147,  165,  169,  196,  197, 
204,  206,  225,  236,  254,  299,  307,  308,  310, 
312,  317, 319, 321,  327,  332,  344,  345,  349, 
352, 358, 392,  395,  398,  399, 407,  408,  419, 
425, 426, 439, 447, 453, 460,  508,  512,  519, 
534, 550,  552,  560,  588,  596, 607, 608,  617, 
623,  627,  634. 

"English  Critic,  An,"  635. 

English  Ronsard,  The,  17. 

"English  Solomon,"  the,  13. 

"English  Terence,  Our,"  346. 

"Epithalamion,"  449,  451,  452. 

Erasmus,  Desiderius,  388,  389. 

Escurial,  the  Ogre,  xx. 

Essays,  Bacon's,  352,  624,  630. 

Essex  County,  479. 

Essex,  Earl  of,  see  Devereux,  Robert,  Earl 
of  Essex. 

Essex,  Lady,  see  Devereux,  Lady  Frances. 

Essex  Rebellion,  167,  319,  374,  560. 

Essex's  Reign,  599,  611,  612,  613,  614. 

Este,  Beatrice  d',  497. 

Estrilda,  173,  174. 

Eton,  331. 

672 


INDEX 


"Euphues,"  The,  15,  66. 
"Eurialus  and  Lucretia,"  ill. 
Eusebius,  430. 

Evans, ,  52,  53. 

"Every  Man  in  His  Humour,"  621. 
"Every  Man  out  of  His  Humour,"  TJ. 
Ewing,  N.  H.,  657. 

"Experiments  in  Consort  touching  Music, 
500. 

F.,  O.,  641. 

"  Faerie  Queene,  The,"  1 6, 344, 41 1 ,  427, 442, 
448,  450, 454, 455, 457, 459,  464, 467,  509, 

559- 

Faerni,  Gabriel,  503. 

"FairEm,"  III,  178. 

"Famous  Victories  of  Henry  Fift,  The," 
140,  141,  143,  164. 

"Farewell  to  Folly,"  79. 

Farmer,  Dr.  Richard,  144,  167,  176. 

Farquhar,  A.  B.,  657. 

Farrara,  497. 

"Faustus,"  399,  468,  482,  484. 

Fearon,  Francis,  641. 

"Felix  and  Philomena,"  119. 

Felton,  S.,  228,  229. 

Ferdinand  I,  of  Austria,  495,  496. 

Ferdinand,  King  of  Spain,  527,  528. 

Feria,  Count  de,  3,  8. 

Feria,  Jane  Dormer,  Duchess  of,  3,  4. 

Fermoy,  Barony  of,  461. 

"Ferrex  and  Porrex,"  14. 

Fest,  Joseph,  641. 

Field,  B.  Rush,  24. 

, Fischer,  E.,  641. 

Fischer,  Dr.  Kuno,  345,  347. 

Fiske,  Gertrude  Horsford,  580,  641. 

Fiske,  John,  657. 

Fitton,  Mary,  150,  151,  153,  378,  629. 

Flanders,  204,  218. 

Flavina,  187. 

Fleay,  Frederic  Gard,  81,  84,  85,  127,  168, 
170,  174,  175,.  177,  185,  195. 

Fleetwood,  William,  11. 

Fletcher,  John,  16,  94,  184,  185,  389. 

Flexner,  A.,  657. 

Florence,  242,  505. 

Florence,  Biblioteca  Nazionale,  634. 

Florie,  John,  68,  271,  421,  518. 

Flowerdale, ,  177,  178. 

Flowerdale,  Mathew,  177,  178. 

Fludd,  Robert,  395. 

Foard,  J.  T.,  641. 

Folios  (Shakespeare's), xxvi,  xxix,  50, 90, 100, 
loi,  102,  103,  104,  105,  106,  107,  108,  109, 
no.  III,  112,  113, 118,  124,  126,  129,  132, 
137,  138,  142,  143,  144,  163,  174,  178,  184, 
196,  208,  209,  222,  224,  226,  243,  245,  249, 
251,  276,  358,  363, 410, 41 1, 412,  418, 419, 
464,465,483,489,  492,498,502,514,  518, 
534,  536,  538,  539,  544,  548,  561, 562,  565, 
566,  575,  576, 577,  581,  583,  584,  623,  627, 
638,  645. 


Folios  (Spenser's),  88,   441,  442,  443,  444, 

445,  446,  456,  464,  467,  559- 
FoUett,  O.,  641. 
"Forest  of  Arden,  The,"  96. 
Fotheringay  Castle,  549. 
Foster,  Joseph,  479. 
Fowler,  Thomas,  298,  320,  344,  350. 
France,  xxi,  5,  70,  130,  132,  218,  305,  307, 

308,309,313,345,439,  459,491,  514,  529, 
^  547,  553,  558,  588,  591,  615,  617. 
France,  King  of,  490,  491,  602. 
Francis  I,  407. 
Frankfort,  395,  398. 
Franklin,  179,  180,  183. 
Freemasons,  Freemasonry,  392,  393,  401. 
"French  Academic,"  630. 
French  Academy,  506. 
Frey,  Albert  R.,  657. 
Friesen,  Baron  H.  von,  641. 
Frobisher,  Sir  Martin,  xx. 
Frothingham,  O.  B.,  657. 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  4,   8,  9,  549,  550. 
Fuller,  E.,  657. 
Fuller,  Thomas,  44,  45,  297,  333,  334,  458, 

460,  629. 
Fulmer,  Rev.  William,  40. 
Furness,  Horace  Howard,  106,   114,    124, 

158,  159,  161,  162,  222,  247,  265. 
Furness  Gloves,  162,  247,  264,  265. 
Furness,  William  H.,  xxiv. 
Furnivall,  Frederick  J.,  xxvii,  19,31,100, 117, 

122,  128,  132,  209,  519,  617,  622,  627,  641, 

64s,  657. 

Galilean  Marriage,  the,  266. 

Galileo,  302,  340,  341. 

"Gallery  Critic,"  657. 

Gallup,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Wells,  530,  534, 
536,  538,  539,  542,  544,  547,  548,  549,  552, 
574,  575,  576,  579,  580,  581,  582,  583, 634, 
641,  656,  657,  659. 

Galsworthy,  Mr. ,  93,  94. 

Gardiner,  Samuel  Rawson,  321. 

Gardiner,  Stephen,  168,  169. 

Gardner, ,  328. 

Garner,  Richard,  485. 

Garnett,  Richard,  297,  308,  331,  641. 

Garrick,  David,  113,  236,  264,  265. 

Garrick  Jubilee,  236,  256,  260,  265,  266. 

Gascoigne,  George,  xx. 

Gaveston,  196,  197,  198,  201,  202,  203. 

Gawdy,  Lady,  443. 

Genee,  R.,  641. 

Genoa,  505. 

Genova,  Giovanni  de,  429. 

"George  a  Greene,"  in,  178. 

German  Shakespeare  Society,  159. 

Germany,  299,  408. 

Germany,  King  of,  494. 

Gervais,  Francis  P.,  270,  271,  272,  274,  294, 

641. 
Gervinus,  G.  G.,  xxv,  xxviii,  125,  127,  130, 
131,  132,  299,  300,  347. 


673 


INDEX 


Gifford,  William,  71,  75,  136. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  xx. 

Gilbert,  William,  340,  341. 

Gilmore,  J.  H.,  657. 

Giovio,  Paolo,  503. 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  xxviii,  656. 

Goadby,  Edwin,  15,  36,  61. 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von,  291. 

Goodale,  George  P.,  525. 

"Good  Queen  Bess,"  see  Elizabeth,  Queen. 

"Gorboduc,"  161. 

Gorges  family,  the,  225. 

Gorges,  Sir  Ferdinando,  224,  320,  323. 

Gorhambury,  370,  616. 

Gottfried  of  Strasburg,  430. 

Gournay  Montaigne,  the,  422. 

Gower,  John,  135. 

Gower,  Lord  Ronald  Southerland,  248. 

Grafton,  Duke  of,  235. 

Grammaticus,  Saxo,  120. 

Grandgent,  Charles  H.,  21. 

Granger,  Rev.  J.,  231,  232. 

Gravelot, ,  247. 

Gray,  Joseph  William,  38,  46. 

Gray,  Robert,  655. 

Great  Banda,  Island  of,  551. 

Great  Britain,  514. 

"Greatest  Birth  of  Time,  The,"  19,  31,  32, 
616. 

Greece,  xxv,  75,  300. 

Green, ,  342. 

Green, ,  diarist,  626. 

Green,  Henry,  503,  630. 

Green,  J.  R.,  258,  426,  334,  335,  426. 

Green,  Mrs.  J.  R.,  36,  335. 

Green,  Thomas,  52,  58. 

Greene,  Rev.  Joseph,  288. 

Greene,  Robert,  16,  61,  (i(>,  79,  80,  84,  90, 
120, 125, 126, 137, 139, 140, 143, 146, 147, 
364,  371,  438, 463,  464, 465,  466,  468, 469, 
479, 480,  481, 482, 496,  507,  522,  523,  524, 
536,  553^  SS4,  III.  S6o,  562,  583, 618, 628, 
656. 

Greenwich,  119. 

Greenwood,  George,  654. 

Greenwood,  G.  G.,  641,  657,  659. 

Greville, ,  xxiii. 

Grey,  Lady  Jane,  4.  569. 

Grey,  William  Lord,  453,  455,  460,  461, 

Grieg,*  W.  W.,  658. 

Grignion, ,  247. 

Grindal,  Archbishop  Edmund,  12. 

"Groatsworth  of  Wit,"  80. 

Grosart,  Dr.  Alexander  B.,  438,  439,  449, 

^45?,  453, 464, 465, 479, 480. 

Grotms,  Hugo,  388,  389,  430. 

Gruter,  Isaac,  357,  358,  359. 

Guendolme,  171,  173,  174. 

Guido  d'Arezzo,  502. 

Guise,  Duke  de,  319. 

Gunpowder,  340. 

Gurney,  207. 


Guyenne,  209. 
Guzman,  Francisco,  503. 

H.,  Mr.  W.,  94,  148,  552. 

Haan,  F.  de,  658. 

Hacket, —,  357. 

Hacket,  Marian,  484. 

Hackett,  J.  H.,  658. 

Haefker,  H.,  642. 

Hague,  Biblioteek,  634. 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  440,  552. 

Hales,  Prof.  J.  W.,  458,  461. 

Hall,  Edward,  131. 

Hall,  Dr.  John,  25,  624. 

Hall,  Robert,  642. 

Hallam,  Henry,  16,  117,  134,  146,  339,  586. 

Halliwell-Phillips,  J.  O.,  15,  17,  33,  37,4i» 
42, 44, 48,  50,  52,  53,  i(>,  57,  58,  59, 60, 69, 
73,  81,  91,  102,  105,  106,  III,  112,  115, 
120,  133,  136, 138,  145,  148,  154,  155,  156, 
163, 175,  184,  195,  208,  209,  222,  235,  244, 
253,  254,  256,  258,  259,  260,  261,  262,  265, 
269,  271,  272,  277,  281,  283,  616,  617,  621, 
625,  626,  627,  628. 

Halsall,  Cuthbert,  431. 

Halsall,  Dorothy  Cuthbert,  431. 

Ham  House,  612. 

"Hamlet,"  xxi,  25,  43,  82,  97,  98,  99,  104, 
113,  118,  120,  121, 122,  123,  124, 125, 127, 
137,  145,  149,  151,  152,  159,  163,  267, 
296,  300, 455, 469,  497,  498,  499,  500,  512, 
513,  617,  622,  628,  647. 

Hampton  Court,  225. 

Hand,  Charles  R.,  642. 

Hanmer, ,  120,  160,  161,  247. 

Hapsburg,  494,  495. 

Harding,  E.,  642. 

Harding,  James,  462. 

Hardwick  Papers,  611. 

Harrington,  Sir  John,  9,  55,  156. 

Harris,  Frank,  151,  152,  156,  159,  642. 

Hart,  Joseph  C.,  xxiv,  642. 

Hart,  William,  378. 

Harvard  president,  a,  1 14. 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  15,  27,  28,  121,  132,  310, 
313,456,457,458,459,657. 

Harvey,  William,  378. 

Harvey,  Dr.  William,  339. 

Harwood,  H.  H.,  642. 

Hatfield  House,  609. 

Hathaway,  Anne,  46,  47,  241,  264,  267, 616. 

Hathaway,  Tone,  241. 

Hathaway,  Richard,  42,  167,  241. 

Hathaway,  William,  378. 

Haughton,  William,  126. 

Hauptvogle,  F.,  642. 

Hawkins,  Thomas,  477. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  xxv,  xxviii, 635, 658. 

Hayward,  Sir  John,  7,  374,  375,  376,  620, 
642. 

Haynes,  Samuel,  611. 

Haywood,  Thomas,  389. 

Hazard,  Ebenezer,  552. 


674 


INDEX 


Hazlitt,  William,  109,  176,  399. 

Hearne,  Thomas,  488,  605. 

"Heat  and  Cold,"  489,  625. 

Heckthorne,  C.  W.,  393,  408. 

Hector,  506. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  21. 

Heinsius,  Daniel,  388,  389. 

Helmingham,  612. 

Helmingham  Manuscript,  612. 

Heminge,  John,  52,  53, 74,  99, 100,  loi,  102, 

103,  no,  113, 144, 14s,  185,222,561. 
Henderson,  William,  642. 
"Henry  First  and  Second,"  ill. 
"Henry  I,"  195. 
"Henry  H,"  195. 
Henry  HI,  King  of  England,  195. 
Henry  HI,  King  of  France,  305,  587,  591. 
Henry  IV,  King  of  England,  7,  455. 
"Henry  IV,"  56,  97,  98,  104,  140,  141,  142, 

164,  374,  375,  S18,  565,  620. 
Henry  IV,  King  of  France,  130,  586,  587, 

588. 
Henry  V,  King  of  England,  568. 
"Henry  V,"  97,  98,  103,  104,  140,  141,  142, 

143,  146,  149,  163,  616,  622. 
Henry  VI,  King  of  England,  600. 
"Henry  VI,"  50,  51,  80,  98,  104,  141,  144, 

145,  146,  147,  208,  308,  463,  481, 490,  502, 

507,  560,  616,  618,  619,  620. 
Henry  VII,  King  of  England,  195, 196, 429. 
"Henry  VII,"  339,  527,  528,  555,  566,  568, 

571,  583. 
Henry  VIII,  Kmg  of  England,  i,  5,  97,  131, 

304,511,513,570. 
"Henry  VIII,"  105,  163,  184,  185,  195,  196, 

338,  508,  516,  527,  528,  625,  662,  663. 
Henry  of  Navarre,  130. 
Henslowe,  Philip,  50,  75, 100,  105, 106,  107, 

108, 114, 119,  121,  122, 125, 127, 141, 143, 

14s,  15s,  167. 
Henslowe's  Actors,  70. 
Herbert,  F.  A.,  644. 
Herbert,  George,  354. 
Herbert,  Philip,  Earl  of  Montgomery,  625. 
Herbert,  William,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  9,  52, 

94,  ISO,  378,  552,  624. 
Hereford,  C.  H.,  117,  133. 
Herefordshire,  594. 
Hertzberg,  W.  A.  B.,  116. 
Heydon,  John,  399,  400,  401,  402,  403. 
Heylin,  Peter,  325. 
Heywood,  John,  304,  511,  512,  513. 
Heywood,  Thomas,  xxiii,  16,  90,  91,  94, 

167,  175,  176,  196. 
Higgins,  Charles  H.,  642,  658. 
Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth,  592. 
High  Wycombe,  50. 
Hildreth,  C,  658. 

Hillard, ,  308. 

Hippolyta,  186,  187,  189,  193. 

"Historic  of  Errors,  The,"  130. 

"History  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  The,"  420, 

423,  424. 


"History  of  King  Stephen,  The,"  III. 
"History  of  the  Winds,  The,"  489, 

625. 
Hitchcock,  E.  A.,  642. 
Hobbs,  Thomas,  318,  331,  363. 
Hodgson,  Sir  A.,  658. 
Holborn,  29, 

Holder, ,  30,  236,  240,  241. 

Holinshed,  Raphael,  140,  141,  179,  514. 

HoU, ,  642. 

Holland,  357,  425. 

Holmes,  George  F.,  658. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  xxviii. 

Holmes,  Nathaniel,  xxv,  xxvi,  xxviii,  31, 

36,  639,  642,  658,  662. 
Holmesworth,  Leonard,  29. 
Holzer,  Gustave,  643,  658. 
Homer,    127,    256,    306,    544,    547,    550, 

561- 

Honorificabilitudino,  373,  377,  428,  429. 

Honthumb,  G.  N.,  658. 

Hookham,  G.,  658. 

Hooker,  Richard,  89. 

Hooper,  H.,  658. 

Hope,  Anthony,  496. 

Hopkins,  Matthew,  13. 

Horace,  75,  89,  130. 

Horneby,  John,  57. 

Hosmer,  H.  L.,  643. 

Howard,  Catherine,  Countess  of  Notting- 
ham, 612,  613. 

Howard,  Charles,  Earl  of  Nottingham,  606, 
613. 

Howard,  Henry,  Earl  of  Surrey,  352. 

Howell,  James,  592,  612. 

Hubrecht,  A.  W.,  658. 

Hudson,  Rev.  Henry  N.,  117,  643. 

Hughes,  Charles,  100. 

Hughes,  William,  378. 

Hugo,  Victor,  45,  46. 

Huguenots,  305. 

Huguinn,  H.  M.,  658. 

Humber,  172,  173. 

Humphrey, ,  229. 

Hungary,  495. 

Hunt,  Mr. 


238. 

Hurstwood,  438. 
Husband,  Walter,  654. 
Hyde,  Edward,  Earl  of  Clarendon,  612. 

"Iliad,"  544,  545,  547,  548. 

Immerito,  132,  310,  3 1 3, 437, 4S4, 45^,  457, 

459- 
Imogen,  171. 
India,  551. 
"Inganni,"  95. 
Ingleby,  Dr.  C.  M.,  19,  62,  "j^,  107,  396, 

493,  639,  643- 
Ingon,  255,  256. 
Ingram,  John  H.,  482. 
Inquisition,  the,  408. 
Invisibles,  the,  401. 
"Iphis  and  lantha,"  in. 


67s 


INDEX 


Ireland,  5,  17,  60,  344,  375,  440,  453,  454, 

459,460,461,462,  514,  596. 
Ireland,  Samuel,  252,  266,  267. 
Ireland,  William  Henry,  68,  262,  266,  267, 

268,  271,  272,  278,  411. 
Irving,  Sir  J.  H.  B.,  658. 
Italians,  the,  406. 
Italy,  S,  7>  307,  3i3»  459,  50S,  506,  617,  634. 

Jaggard,  Isaac,  73,  9°,  9 1,  95,  624, 627. 

Jaggard,W.,643,658. 

Jaggard,  William,  102,  103,  109,  498,  536. 

James  I  of  England,  James  VI  of  Scotland, 
XX,  xxi,  2,  13,  208,  321,  322,  323,  325,  328, 
334,  335,  336,  349,  35°,  392, 4^4,  4i5, 4i6, 
447, 492,  507,  508,  514,  523,  550,  551,  584, 
585,  597,  599,  60s,  606,  608, 622, 623. 

"James  IV,"  480. 

James  V,  King  of  Sotland,  514. 

James  VI,  see  James  I. 

James,  G.,  643,  654. 

Jamestown,  552. 

Janson,  Bernard,  443. 

Janssen,  Gerald,  233,  245,  248, 

Japan,  SSI. 

Jardine,  David,  602,  603. 

Jennens, ,  160,  234. 

Jennings,  Hargrave,  401. 

Jennings,  H.  C.,  239,  240. 

Jennings,  John  J.,  6s9- 

"Jeronimo,"  485. 

Jerusalem,  407. 

Jespersen,  Otto,  643,  659. 

Jesuits,  the,  xix. 

"Jew  of  Malta,  The,"  468. 

Jewel,  Bishop  John,  13. 

Joan  of  Arc,  491. 

John,  King  of  England,  195. 

John,  King  of  France,  220,  221.  See  also 
"King  John." 

Johnson,  Gerard,  245. 

Johnson,  Jesse,  644. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  43,  69,  71,  72,  141,  145, 
226. 

Jones, ,  433. 

Jones,  Thomas,  43. 

Jonson,  Ben,  16,  40,  44,  45,  49,  61,  62,  66, 
70,  71,  72,  73,  74,  ^i,  76,  -JT,  79,  81,  84,  89, 
90,92,93,94,96,98,  loi,  115,116,136, 
174,  230,  240,  24s,  307,  308,  318,  339,  348, 
363,  388,  389, 437, 447, 474, 495,  S16,  SS5, 
584,  s8s,  621,  623,  648,  656. 

Jordan,  Mrs.  Dorothy,  268. 

Jordan,  John,  262,  263,  272. 

"Julius  Caesar,"  104, 107, 108, 167, 296, 362, 
455,  622. 

Justice  Clodpate,  40. 

K.,  E.,  459. 

K.,H    445. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  345. 
Keats,  John,  357. 
Keck,  Robert,  230. 


Keepe,  Henry,  445,  446. 

Keiffer,  J.  W.,  659. 

Keller,  Helen,  659. 

Kellogg,  A.  O.,  24. 

Kemble,  John  Philip,  268. 

Kempe,  William,  53,  84,  620. 

Kendall,  Frank  A.,  432,  644. 

Kent  County,  197,  200,  206,  453,  509. 

Kester,  177. 

Kilcoran,  453. 

"King  Darius,"  14. 

"King  Edward  First,"  478. 

"King  Edward  Second,"  in.  See  also  un- 
der Edward. 

"King  John,"  98,  103,  104,  118,  138,  139, 
140,  144,  148,  616,  617. 

"King  Lear,"  24,  97,  104,  118,  136,  152,268, 
501,  616,  622,  624. 

King,  Thomas  D.,  644. 

Kinnear,  M.  H.,  646. 

Kintzel-Thumm,  Magdalen,  156,  280,  285, 
286,  289,  290,  291,  292,  293,  294,  296, 

659- 

Kirk,  Edward,  459. 

Klanke, ,  644. 

Kneller,  Sir  Godrey,  230,  231. 

Knight,  Charles,  xxvi,  33, 34, 35, 36,  38, 121, 
123, 125,  126,  127,  129,  130,  131,  137,  141, 
142,  146,  147,  160,  167,  170,  174,  17s,  177, 
178, 179, 181, 183,  252,  254,  255,  256,  259, 
260,  261,  262,  274,  304,  505,  627. 

Knortz,  Von  Karl,  644. 

Knott,  J.,  657,  659. 

Kok,  A.  S.,  659. 

Konodes,  P.  C.,  244. 

Kropotkin, ,  302. 

Kuesswetter,  H.,  644. 

Kyd,  Francis,  485. 

Kyd,  Thomas,  16,  114, 115, 122, 123,  364, 
481,  484,  485,  507. 

Kyllcollman,  452,  461. 

Lactantius,  430. 
Ladislaus  II,  495. 
Laelius,  C,  346. 
Laing,  F.  H.,  292,  644. 
Laird,  John,  Jr.,  644. 
Lamb,  Charles,  185,  477. 
Lambert,  John,  618. 
Lancashire,  438,  453. 

Lancaster, ,  197,  198,  201,  202,  204. 

"Lancer,"  659. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  644. 

Lane,  Thomas,  89. 

Laneham,  John,  52. 

Lang,  Andrew,  93,  552,  644,  659,  660. 

Lathrop,  G.  P.,  659. 

Latimer,  Dr.  Hugh,  3. 

"Law  at  Twickenham,"  619. 

Lawrence,  Sir  Edwin  Durning,  96,  249,  271, 

420,  634,  644,  648,  655. 
Lector,  Oliver,  415,  644. 
Lee,  R.,  659. 


676 


INDEX 


Lee,  Sir  Richard,  i66. 

Lee,  Sidney,  xxvi,  xxviii,  16,33,47,  48,49,52, 
53,  54,  55,  69,  73,  85,  86,  87,  88,  90,  93, 
99,  102,  103,  113,  115,  119,  123,  131,  133, 
136,  138,  139,  141,  156,  158,  227,  230,  231, 
244, 245, 247,  249,  260,  261, 296,  377,  481, 
483,  484, 48s,  534,  548,  549,  552,  615,  618, 
621,  627,  644,  649. 

Le  Feria.     See  Feria. 

Leftwich,  R.  W.,  644. 

Le  Grys,  Robert,  584,  585. 

Lehmann,  Ludwig,  659. 

Leibnitz,  Gottfried  Wilhelm,  345. 

Leicester  County,  232. 

Leicester,  Earl  of,  see  Dudley,  Lord  Robert, 
Earl  of  Leicester. 

Leicester,  Earl  of,  his  servants,  93. 

Leicester  House,  453,  459. 

Leith,  Miss  A.  A.,  645. 

Lentzner,  C.  A.,  645. 

Leopold  Shakspere,  The,  222. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim,  348. 

Leti,  Gregorio,  611. 

Levers,  W.,  644. 

Leverson,  Richard,  Kt,,  150. 

Lewis,  George  Pitt,  645. 

Lewis,  Sarah  Anna,  431. 

Leyden,  357. 

Liberty  at  Shoreditch,  65. 

Liebig,  Justus  von,  294,  298,  300. 

Lilly's,  William,  Grammar,  41. 

Limerick,  453,  454. 

Lincoln,  604. 

Ling,  Nicholas,  122. 

Lingard,  John,  3,  10,  550,  601,  603. 

Lipsius,  Justus,  388,  389. 

Liverpool,  240. 

Livy,  509. 

Lloyd,  William  Watkiss,  117. 

"Locrine,"  no,  118,  163,  170,  171,  172, 
173,  174,  464,  465,  466,  467,  509. 

Lodge,  Edmund,  516. 

Lodge,  Thomas,  16,  66,  121. 

Lodowick,  211,  212,  214,  215,  216. 

Lollesbury,  479. 

London,  xxiv,  11,14,15,30,35,38,40,43,44, 
45,  50,  51,  52,  54,  56,  57,  58,  59,  60,  63,  64, 
6s,  66,  67,  79,  82,  94,  99,  112,  113,  114, 
119,  121, 131,  151,  152,  154,  158,  164,  177, 
230,  232,  233,  237,  241,  243,  265,  266,  303, 
312,  372,  413, 419,  439,  440, 441,  446, 448, 
453,  458,  462, 469,  480,  481,  502,  S13,  521, 
524,  585,  617,  619,  622,  627,  629. 
Bankside,  155. 
Battersea,  239, 
Bear  Garden,  620. 
Bell  Inn,  57,  59. 
Bishop  of,  12. 
Bishopsgate,  510,  620. 
Boar's  Head  Tavern,  228,  236,  244. 
British  Archives,  224. 
British  Museum,  276,  277,  278,  284, 
294,  391, 443, 488,  490,  5 16,  548,  634,  652. 


Burbage's  Stable,  50, 65, 235, 617. 

Burlington  House,  240. 

Carter  Lane,  57,  59. 

Castle  Street,  228. 

Christ's  Hospital,  469. 

Curzon  Street,  228. 

Daily  Telegraph,  The,  650. 

Doctor's  Commons,  277. 

Drury-House,  559,  607. 

Fire,  the  Great,  1 10. 

Gray's  Inn,  15,  66,  130,  305,  308,  311, 
313,  3 18,  333,  372,  374,  437, 490,  499,  521, 
547,  617,  618,  619,  621,  622,  625. 

Guildhall,  276,  277,  278,  282,  284, 
294. 

Ham  House,  612. 

Hampton  Court,  130. 

Harleian  Society,  439. 

Heralds  College,  34,  77,  622. 

Houseof  Commons,  316,  317,  320,  325, 

332,333. 

House  of  Parliament,  502,  617. 

House  of  Peers,  317,  325,  350. 

Inner  Temple  Hall,  652. 

Inns  of  Court,  95, 

Leicester  Square,  228. 

Liberty,  Fields  of,  65. 

Lombard  Street,  511. 

Mayfair,  228. 

Merchant  Taylor's  Company,  439. 

Merchant  Taylor's  School,  446,  447, 

485- 

Moor-fields,  xix. 

National  Portrait  Gallery,  227. 

New  Shakespeare  Society,  652. 

Newington,  50. 

Public  Record  Office,  52,269,271,275, 
277,  278,  284. 

Royal  Garden,  29. 

Royal  Society,  650. 

Ruffian,  A.,  181. 

St.  Clements  Danes,  439. 

St.  Helens,  620,  621. 

St.  Paul's  Cross,  604. 

Shakespeare  Society,  129. 

Shoreditch,  xix,  65. 

South  Kensington  Shakespeare  Show, 
240. 

South wark,  50,  620. 

Star  Chamber,  2,  154,  617. 

Stationers'  Hall,  81. 

Stationers'  Register,  114,  449,  452,  484, 
512. 

Tailors  of,  249. 

Temple,  29,  490,  502. 

Temple  Gardens,  490. 

Temple  Hall,  490. 

Theaters,  15,  16;  Blackfriars,  52,  53, 
429,  625,  626;  Burbage's,  53,  1 12,  618; 
Chamberlain's,  620;  Globe,  52,  53,  135, 
295,  296,  429,  626;  Henslow's,  50,  125, 
141;  at  Newington,  50;  at  Shoreditch, 
65;  at  Southwark,  50. 


677 


INDEX 


Tower,  4,  7,  165,  197,  205,  207,  335, 
374,  375, 438,  556,  557,  57o,  586,  600,  601, 
602,  605,  610,  623. 

Tyburn,  586. 

Westminster,  318,  331,  453,  459,  623. 

Westminster  Abbey,  66,  237,  248,  337, 
441,442,444,446,447,616. 

Westminster  Hall,  652. 

Whitehall,  624. 

York  House,  615. 
"London  Prodigal,  The,"  no,  135,  177. 
Long,  Kingsmill,  584,  585,  586. 
Loosen,  O.,  645. 
Lopez,  Roderigo,  618. 
Lorraine,  Duke  of,  209,  210. 
Louis  n,  495. 
Louis  XIH,  428. 
"Lover's  Complaint,  A,"  624. 
"Love's  Labours  Lost,"  56,  97,  104,  129, 
131,  132,  133,  150,  373,  377,  428,  429,  515, 
617,  621. 
"Love's  Labours  Won,"  620. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  xxv,  xxviii. 
Lowndes,  William  Thomas,  122,  123. 
Luce,  177,  178. 
Lucian,  137. 
"Lucrece,"  xxi,  16,  84,  100,  373,  434,  435, 

507,  519,  619. 
Lucy,  Sir  Thomas,  40,  42,  44. 
Lumley,  H.,  645. 
Lunenburg,  418. 
Luther,  Martin,  408. 
Lyly,  John,  66,  481. 
Lysons,  Daniel,  233. 
Lytton,  Lord  Bulwer,  357. 

Mabie,  Hamilton  Wright,  567. 

McCarthy,  Justin,  108. 

McGachan,  B.,  659. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  324,  328, 

330,  331,  332,  333,  334,  341,  345,  346,  363, 

506,  507. 
Macbeth,  King  of  Scotland,  514. 
"Macbeth,"    104,    174,   395,  455,    514, 

624. 
Mackay,  Charles,  408,  659. 
Mackey,  Albert  G.,  392. 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  334. 
Madden,  D.  H.,  645. 
Madrid,  Biblioteca  Nacional,  634. 
Madrid,  Escurial,  xx. 
Magnae  Derivations,  429. 
Maine,  552. 

Maier, ,  395,  398,  399,  419. 

Mamwarmg,  Mr. ,  58. 

Maistre,  Joseph  de,  341. 

Malines,  512. 

Mallet,  David,  548. 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  573,  574,  577,  579,  580, 

^  583>659. 

Malone,  Edward,  22,  33,  43,  50,  69,  70,  71, 

72,  106,  113,  118,  119,  122,  123,  125,  126, 

134,  142, 143,  144,  145,  146,  158,  163, 175, 


229,  252,  256,  260,  262,  263,  270,  278,  282, 

283,  289,  294,  616,  627,  647. 
Mandan,  John,  241. 
Manningham,  John,  95,  458. 
Mantua,  493. 

Mantua,  Church  of  St.  Barnabas,  492. 
Marchfeld,  Battle  of,  494 
Margaret  of  Valois,  305-306,  553,  558,  572, 

586,  587,  588,  589,  591. 
Marlowe,  Christopher,  xxv,  66,  70, 126, 127, 

128,  137,  138,  140,  144,  146,  147,  170,  196, 

318,  364,  371,  410,  414,  438,  462,  463, 464, 

467,  468, 469,  480,  481,  482,  483,  507.  522, 

523,  536,  553,  554,  555,  561,  566,  583, 650. 
Marlow,  John,  480. 
Marmontel,  659. 
Marriott,  E.,  645. 

Marsham, ,  10. 

Marston,  R.  B.,  547,  548,  552,  659. 

Martial,  470. 

Martin,  Sir  T.,  645,  659. 

Marvin,  F.  R.,  645. 

Mary  of  Burgundy,  495. 

Mary,  Princess,  511. 

Mary  I  of  England,  i,  3,  304,  511,  570. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scotland,  xxiii,  4,  8,   13, 

236.  317,  319.  429,  450,  455,  549,  550, 

551,  566, 569,  586,  597, 600, 613, 646. 
Mascardus,  Augustine,  388,  389. 
Mason,  William,  444,  445,  448,  456,  457. 
Masonry,  392,  393,  401. 
Massachusetts,  634. 

Massey, ,  xxviii. 

Massinger,  Philip,  16,  185,  389. 

Matthew,  SirTobie,  296,  297,  320,  321,  327, 

337, 348, 363, 620, 624, 629, 645, 649. 
Matthew,  A.  H.,  645. 
Maud,  F.  C,  645. 
Maudlin  College,  331. 
Maurier,  Aubrey  de,  612. 
Maximilian  I,  495. 
May,  Thomas,  389. 
Mayence,  243. 
"Measure  for  Measure,"  104,  296,  362,  455, 

623. 
Meautys,  Thomas,  351. 
"Meditationae  Sacrae,"  620. 
Meeshel,  O.,  659. 
Melancthon,  Philip,  414. 
Melville,  James,  611. 
"Menaechmi,  The,"  130. 
"Menaphon,"  120,  125,  485. 
Mendenhall,  Dr.  T.  C,  645,  660. 
Merchant  Marks,  410. 
"Merchant  of  Venice,  The,"  97,  104,  362, 

455,  511,  618,  620,  622. 
Meres,  Francis,  115,  118,  119,  138,  140,  470, 

481. 

Merricke, ,  374. 

"Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton,  The,"  in,  178. 
"Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The,"  56,  97, 

103,  104,  518,  623,  629. 
Messianic  Cult,  The,  21,  255,  292. 


678 


INDEX 


Michael,  182,  183. 

Michel,  F.,  645. 

Michels,  J.,  660. 

"Midas  of  Poetry,"  62. 

Middleton,  Thomas,  (£,  107,  174. 

Midlands,  the,  244. 

"Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,"  88,  89, 

97,  104,  357,  480,  619,  622. 
Mignault,  Claude,  415. 
Milan,  242,  497,  617. 
Milan,  Duchess  of,  497. 
Milton,  John,  63,  170,  308,  353,  355,  356, 

364,  407,  644. 
Mirandola,  John  Picus,  Earl  of,  388,  389. 
"Mirror  of  Martyrs,  The,"  107. 
"Mirror  of  Modesty,  The,"  556. 
Mobile,  250. 
Mocha,  551. 

Montagu,  Basil,  297,  333,  627. 
Montaigne,  Michel,  21,  269,  271,  272,  273, 

274,  3 13,  327,  346,  352,  412,  422,  423,  517. 
Montauban,  318. 
Montemayor,  George  de,  119. 
Montfort,  John  de,  218. 
Montgomery,  Charles  Alexander,  522,  634, 

645. 
Montgomery,  Earl  of,  see  Herbert  Philip, 

Earl  of  Montgomery. 

Montjoy, ,  606,  608. 

Moore,  C.  L.,  660. 

Moore,  H.  L.,  660. 

Moore,  Stuart  A.,  36. 

Moore,  Thomas,  506. 

Moravia,  494. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  2. 

Morgan,  Appleton,  53,  54,  645,  660. 

Morgan,  Sydney,  Lady,  505. 

Morley,  John,  346. 

Mortimers,  the,  197,  198,  199,  200,  201,  202, 

203,  204,  205,  206,  207. 
Morton,  Samuel  George,  250. 
Mosbie,  180,  181,  182,  183. 
"Mother  Bombie,"  161. 
"Mother  Hubbard's  Tale,"  460. 
Mountague,  Sir  William,  210. 
Mountford,  Thomas,  601. 
"Mucedorus,"  iii,  178. 
"Much  Ado  About  Nothing,"  97,  104,  597, 

622. 
Muller,  Max,  519. 
Miiller,  Mylius  von  Karl,  646,  660. 
Munday,  Anthony,  Gd,  \cyj,  167. 
Murray,  Sir  James  A.  H.,  363,  519. 

Musgrave, ,  439. 

Myttons,  Mr. ,  58. 

Nacke,  P.,  660. 

Naples,  495. 

Napoleon,  352. 

Nash,  Thomas,  16,  66,  81,  84,  94,  120,  121, 

125,  141,  143,  485. 
Naunton,  Sir  Robert,  593,  595. 
Navarre,  588,  617. 


Nero,  406. 

Netherlands,  the,  455. 

Netherwood,  594. 

"New  Atlantis,  The,"  402,  403,  423,  486, 

561,  568,  572,  610. 
New  Bedford,  634. 
New  England  Patent,  The,  323. 
New  Literary  Conundrum,  660, 
New  Shakespeare  Discoveries,  660. 
New  Shakespeare  Society,  652. 
New  York  Herald,  xxvii. 
Newfoundland,  552. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  xxv. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  300,  345. 
Nichol,  John,  344,  345. 
Nicholas,  Daniel,  275,  276. 

Nichols, ,  488. 

Nicholson,  A.,  660. 

Nicholson,  J.  A.,  646. 

Nicol,  George,  229. 

Norfolk,  10. 

Norfolk,  Duke  of,  7,  516. 

Norris,  Sir  Henry,  439. 

North,  Sir  Thomas,  309. 

Northumberland,  Duke  of,  608,  640. 

Northumberland  Manuscript,  the,  346,  372, 

377,  429,  640. 
Norwich,  479. 
Nottingham,  Lady.  See  Howard,  Catherine, 

Countess  of  Nottingham. 
Nottingham,   Lord  Admiral,  see  Howard, 

Charles,  Earl  of  Nottingham. 
"Noverint,"  120. 
"Novum  Organum,"  339,  341,  360,  361, 

526. 
Nuremberg,  302. 

O'Connor,  William  D.,  646. 
"Odyssey,"  544,  548. 
Ogilby,  John,  547. 

"Oldrastes  and  the  Second  Maiden's  Trag- 
edy," III. 
Oldys,  William,  43, 44, 438,  601, 628. 
"Orlando  Furioso,"  126. 
O'Neill,  G.,  646. 
"Order  of  Hamlet,"  619. 
Ordish,  T.  Fairman,  646. 
Orleans,  311. 
Orleans  University,  325. 
"Othello,"  103,  104,  152,  247,  357,  362, 4SS, 

527,  565,  623. 
Ottokar,  King,  494,  496. 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  626. 
Ovid,  127,  130,  547. 
Owen,  C.  H.,  661. 
Owen,  Dr.  Orville  W.,  523,  524,  525,  526, 

527,  529,  646. 
Oxford,  50,  55,  66,  331,  342,  469. 

Bodleian  Library,  311. 

Christ  Church,  470. 

Clarendon  Press,  505. 

Corpus  Christi  College,  40. 

Crown  Inn,  55. 


679 


INDEX 


Dictionary,  66i. 
Magdalen  College,  612. 
University,  121,  494,  634. 

P.,  J.  W.,  661. 

Pacific  Ocean,  339. 

Packington,  Lady,  624. 

Padua,  126,  505,  617. 

Page,  Robert,  6. 

Palamon,  188,  189,  190,  192,  194. 

"Palamon  and  Arcite,"  185. 

"Pandosto,"496. 

Paper  Marks,  see  Water  Marks. 

Paradin,  Claude,  503,  504. 

"Paradise  Lost,"  661. 

"Parasceve,"  556. 

Paris,  8,  70,  153,  3 18,  414,  S2i,  53°,  584- 

Paris,  French  Academy,  506. 

Parkman, ,  xxv. 

Parmenides,  xxv. 

Parris  Garden,  121. 

"PassionatePilgrim,  The,"90,  91,  iii,  112. 

Passe,  Simon,  251. 

Paulet,  Amias,  305,  306,  309,  311,  460,  553, 

558,  615. 
Paulet,  Lady,  305. 
Pauvier,  Thomas,  144. 
Peacham,  Rev.  Edward,  349. 
Peck,  Geo.  R.,  661. 
Peckham  Rye,  238. 
Peele,  George,  16,  52,  66,  139,  140,  147,  175, 

196,  318,  364,  371,  438, 463,  468,  469,  470, 

477, 478, 479, 480, 481,  507,  523,  524,  536, 

553,  554,  555,  561,  583. 
Peele,  James,  469. 
Pelham,  Sir  William,  440,  441. 
Pembroke,  Earl  of,  see   Herbert,  William, 

Earl  of  Pembroke. 
Pembroke,  Earl  of,  his  servants,  126. 
Pembroke,  Lord,  553,  598,  599,  625. 
Penzance,  J.  P.  W.,  646,  664. 
Pepys,  Samuel,  357. 
Percy,  Thomas,  115. 
Peregrinus,  Petrus,  303,  340. 
"Pericles,"  25,  97,  100,  109,  no,  134,  135, 

136,  153,  178,  184,  417,  503,  616,  624. 
Perithous,  189,  191,  194,  195. 
Perry,  M.  J.,  646.  * 

Persian  Gulf,  551. 
Petrus.     See  Peregrinus. 
Peyne,  Rev.  A.  de  la,  336. 
Philip  of  Austria,  495. 
Philip  II  of  Spain,  3,  8,  9,  455,  588. 
Philip  IV  of  Spain,  335. 
Philippa,  Queen,  219,  220. 
Philips,  Augustine,  52,  624. 
Phillips,    James    Orchard,    see    Halliwell- 

Phillips,  J.  O. 
Philomusus,  83. 
Phocylides,  xxvi. 

Picus,  John,  Earl  of  Mirandola,  388,  389. 
"Piece-meal  Poets,"  loi. 
"Pierce  Penniless,"  141. 


"Pinner  of  Wakefield,  The,"  480. 

Pisistratus,  32. 

"Planetomachia,"  557. 

Plantin  Press,  the,  415. 

Plato,  423. 

Piatt,  Dr.  Isaac  Hull,  412,  413,  429,  646, 

661. 
Plautus,  130,  300. 
Playfair,  John,  345. 
Pliny,  102. 
Plumtree,  Dean,  651. 
Plutarch,  107,  137,  308. 
Plymouth  Colony,  552. 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  357,  430,  431,  432. 
"Poetaster,"  81. 
Poet's  Company,  The,  52. 
Pollock,  J.,  661. 
Pollock,  W.H.,  661. 
Pope,  Alexander,  17,  loi,  136,  160,  167,  184, 

247,  345,  544,  547,  548,  55°- 
Popham  Colony,  552. 
Popham,  Sir  John,  324. 
Porta,  Joan  Baptista,  413,  579. 
Porter  and  Clark,  620. 
Porter,  Charlotte,  137. 
Potamian,  302. 

Pott,  Mrs.  Henry,  xxvi,  467,  653,  661. 
Pott,  Louis,  647. 
Power,  D'Arcy,  24. 
"Prince  of  Denmark,"  see  Hamlet. 
Prior,  Sir  James,  647. 
Proctor,  Bryan  Waller,  136. 
Proctor,  R,  A.,  661. 
Proelsz,  Robert,  661. 
"Promos  and  Cassandra,"  14. 
"Prompter's  Books,"  loi. 
"Promus,"  617,  619,  647,  648,  653,   660, 

662. 
"Prothalamion,"  448. 
Psalms  paraphrased,  354,  355. 
Puckering,  Sir  John,  316. 
Puntavolo,  TJ,  78,  79. 
"Puritan  Widow,  The,"  no,  174. 
Puritan,  304,  327,  328,  337,  396. 
Putney,  168. 

Puttenham,  George,  306,  584. 
Puttenham,  Hichard,  584. 
Pyeboard,  175. 
Pyle,  J.  Gilpin,  647,  661. 
Pyramid,  the  Great,  251. 
Pythagoras,  xxvi. 

Q.,  W.  F.,  661. 

Quarles,  Francis,  409. 

Quartos,  the,  xxix,  97,  98,  loi,  103,  105,  113, 
121,  122,  124,  125,  126,  137,  141,  164,  170, 
184,  208,  358, 412,  413,  483,  SOI,  512,  513. 

Queenes  Majesties  Children  of  the  Chap- 
pell,  52. 

Quiney,  Richard,  57,  59. 


R.,  F.,66i. 
Radcliffe,  George,  444. 

680 


INDEX 


Raeder,  Dr. 

Rait, ,  549,  550,  552. 


-,  647. 


Ralegh,  Sir  Walter,  70,  296,  454,  552,  597, 

601,  602,  604,  623. 
Ralegh,  Walter,  Jr.,  70,  71. 
Randolph,  Thomas,  440. 
Rapafort,  S.,  661. 

Raphael, ,  386. 

Rapp,  C.  M.,  647. 

Ratsey  episode,  53,  81,  82,  83. 

Ratsey,  Gamalial,  53,  81,  82,  83. 

Ravenscroft,  Edward,  115. 

Rawley,  William,  xxii,  297,  305,  307,  337, 

343,  348,  358,  381,  399,  400, 410, 416,  425, 

435,  436,  437,  500,  515,  536,   562,  629, 

647. 
Raynal,  L.  de,  647. 
Raysing,  Rose,  116. 
Red  Cross,  Order  of  the,  393,  394,  396. 
Redgrave,  443. 
Red  way,  George,  636. 
Reed,  E.,  661. 

Reed,  Edwin,  xxvi,  xxvii,  86,  371,  coo,  647. 
Reed,  S.R.,  661. 
Rees,  James,  656. 
Reichel,  Eugen,  648. 
Rein,  Ad.,  661. 
Remusat,  Charles  de,  648. 

Replington,  Mr. ,  58. 

"Return  from    Parnassus,  The,"  83,  387, 

388,421. 

Reusner, ,  503. 

Revel  at  Court,  106,  240. 

"Revenge  of  Hamlet,"  121,  512. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  229. 

Reynolds,  S.  H.,  505. 

Richard  II,  King  of  England,  374,  496,600. 

"Richard  II,"  98,  104,  141,  142,  372,  373, 

.374,  375,  376,  377,  619,  620. 
Richard  II,  Queen  of,  29. 
"Richard  III,"  33,  55,  97,  98,  103,  104,  146, 

.174,196,372,377,619,620. 
Richard,  Duke  of  York,  146. 

Richardson, ,  228. 

Richardson,  G.  F.,  662. 

Richardson,  John,  47. 

Richmond,  the  Earl  of,  33. 

Ring  Story,  see  Essex's  Ring. 

Ritson,  Joseph,  130. 

Roanoke,  542. 

Roberts,  James,  102. 

Robertson,  John   M.,  xxvii,  99,   119,   158, 

296,  364,  377,  552,  648. 
Robinson,  H.  J.,  552. 
Rochester,  183,  604. 
Rochester,  the  Bishop  of,  164. 
Rocky  Mountains,  339. 
Roe,  J.  E.,  648. 
Rogers,  Phillip,  57,  623. 
Rolfe,  William  J.,  127,  128,  134,  140,  151, 

662. 
"Romance  of   Appollonius,  Tyrias,  The," 

135. 

68 


Romano,  GiuHo,  492, 493 . 

Rome,  5,  75,  139,  300,  617. 

Rome,  the  Vatican,  386. 

"Romeo  and  Juliet,"  98,  104,  125,  357, 455, 

558,  618,  620. 
Ronsard,    Pierre    de,    xxi,    17,    306,    307, 

308. 
Roscius,  75. 
Rose,  C.  H.,  662. 
Rose,  E.,  662. 
Rose  Cross,  Rosecrucians,  Rosecrucianism, 

312,  392,  393,  394,  395,  396,  397,  398,  399, 

400,  401,  402,  403,  419,  424,  436,  437,  652. 
Rosalind,  381. 

Rose  well,  Mr. ,  58. 

Rotterdam,  388,  389. 

Rowe,  Nicholas,  xxviii,  33,  41,  42,  43,  44, 

64,  68,  69,  70,   113,  124,  133,  134,  167, 

248,  627,  628. 
Rowlands,  John,  648. 
Rowley,  William,  136,  185. 
Roxburgh,  Castle,  210. 
Rudolph  of  Ems,  430. 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  494. 

Ruggles, ,  XXV. 

"Ruins  of  Rome,  The,"  307,  465,  466. 
Rushton,  William  Lowes,  648. 
Russell,  W.  E.,  662. 
Russia,  I,  131,  440, 
Russia,  Tzar  of,  621. 
Rutland,  Lord,  626,  640,  656. 

"S.,"630. 
S.,  E.  W.,  648. 
S.,J.,65i. 
S.,  L.  H.,  648. 
S.,  W.,  509. 

Sadler, ,  270. 

Sagadahoc,  552. 

"Sailing  of  Ships,  The,"  489,  625. 

St.  Albans,  xxii,  165,  297,  303,  336,  351, 

465,  500,  502,  509,  518,  616,  617. 
St.  Albans,  St.  Michael's  Church,  350. 
St.  Andrews,  429. 
St.  Barnabas  Day,  452. 
Saint-George,  Henry,  648. 
St.  Petersburg,  Biblioteka,  634. 
Saintsbury,  George  E.  B.,  16,  308. 
Salisbury,  the  Countess  of,  210,  211,  212, 

213,  214,  216,  217. 
Salisbury,  Lord,  218. 
Salisbury,  Marquis  of,  61  r. 
Sallust,  509. 

Salusbury,  Sir  John,  430,  431. 
Sambucus,  503. 
Sandells,  Fulk,  47. 
Sanders,  G.  A.,  236,  648. 
Sandes,  Sandys,  George,  389,  547. 
Sarrazin,  Gregor,  485. 
"Satiromastix,"  121,  149. 
Savage,  M.  J.,  662. 
Scadding,  Rev.  Henry,  21. 
Scaliger,  Joseph,  388,  389. 

I 


INDEX 


Scaliger,  Julius  Caesar,  388,  389,  390. 

Schaible,  C.  H.,  648. 

Schelling,  F.  E.,  648. 

Schipper,  Jakob,  648. 

Schlegel,  A.  W.  von,  xxiv,  59,  163,  167, 
170,  174,  348. 

Schmidt,  Alexander,  519. 

Schneider,  Karl,  662. 

Schooling,  J.  H.,  662. 

Scipio,  346. 

Scot,  Michael,  302. 

Scotland,  484,  514,  550. 

Scotland,  King  of,  605,  608,  609. 

Scope,  Lady,  613. 

Scott,  Edward  John  Lord,  457. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  484. 

Scotts,  the,  208,  211. 

Scotts,  Queen  of.  See  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots. 

Seager,  H.  W.,  28. 

Sears,  L.,  662. 

Seckerstone,  Roger,  452. 

Sedgwick,  A.  G.,  662. 

"Sejanus,"  623. 

Seldon,  John,  388,  389. 

Seleneus,  418. 

"Seliman  and  Perseda,"  485. 

"Selinus,"  118,  464,  468,  480. 

Seneca,  417. 

Servetus,  Michael,  339. 

Serviss,  G.  P.,  662. 

"Sesers  Falle,"  107;  see  also  "Julius  Caesar." 

Severn,  Charles,  40,  44,  49. 

Seymour,  Lord  Thomas,  3. 

Shackford,  C.  C,  662. 

Shakebag,  181. 

Shakespeare,  a  village,  420. 

Shakespeare  Society,  129. 

Shakespeare,  William,  Works  of,  xxii,  xxiii, 
xxiv,  XXV,  xxvi,  xxvii,  xxviii,  xxix,  16,  17, 
18, 19,  21,  22,  24,  25,  28,  29,  30,  32,  33,  41, 
51,52,60,62,63,65,69,72,76,77,84,85, 
87,99,  108,  no.  III,  115,  116,  117,  118, 
119, 120, 121, 123, 125, 127, 128, 129, 132, 
133, 137, 139,  140,  I44»  145, 146, 147, 162, 
163, 195,  207,  208,  222,  227,  243,  244,  249, 
254,  255,  271,  272,  274,  284,  293,  295,  299, 
301,  309,  316,  341,  344,  346,  352,  355,  356, 
358,  361,  362,  363,  364,  365,  367,  371,  372, 

374,  377, 410,  413, 414, 419, 436, 455, 462, 
463, 464, 469, 475, 478, 480, 481, 482, 483, 
484, 486, 494,  503,  504,  505,  506,  509,  519, 
522,  523,  534,  536,  544,  548,  553,  554,  561, 
566,  572,  579,  581,  583,  616, 618,  619,  620, 
626, 627, 630,  639, 640,  642, 646,  647,  648, 
649,652,653,659,662,663. 

Shakespeare,  William,  a  glazier,  264. 

Shakespeare,  William,  may  have  lost  the 
ring,  263,  264. 

Shakespearean,  A.  635. 

Shakspere,  Guil,  231. 

Shakspere,  Hamnet,  617,  620. 

Shakspere,  Jeames,  256. 

682 


Shakspere,  John,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37,  38,  41, 
47,  81,  98,  253,  254,  256,  257,  258,  259, 
260,  264,  265. 
Shakspere,  Judith,  152,  283,  617. 
Shakspere,  Susanna,  616,  624. 
Shakspere,  William. 

Actor,  xxiv,  xxv,  xxvi,  xxvii,  14,  17,  18, 
20,  28,  32,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37,  38,  39, 40, 41, 
42,  43,  44,  45, 46,  47,  48,  49,  51,  52,  53,  54, 
55,  56,  57,  58,  59,  60,  62,  63,  64,  65,  69,  70, 
72,  74,  76,  77,  79,  80,  81,  82,  83,  85,  86,  87, 
88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,99,100, 
105,  106,  109,  III,  112,  115,  116, 117, 118, 
119,  120, 121,  123,  124, 125,  126,  127,  128, 
129, 130, 131, 132, 133,  134, 135,  136, 137, 
138, 139,  140, 141,  142,  143, 144, 145,  146, 
147, 148, 149,  150,  151,  154,  155,  156,  157, 
160,  163,  164, 167,  169,  170, 174, 175, 177, 
179, 183,  184, 185,  195,  208,  209,  224,  225, 
226,  227,  228,  230,  231,  232,  233,  235,  236, 
237,  240,  241, 243,  244,  245,  248,  253,  254, 
263,  271,  274,  287,  289,  291,  292,  295,  299, 
300,  301,  303,  308,  346,  347,  348,  352,  356, 
361,  362,  372,  373,  374,  377,  384,  385,  386, 
389,  395,  396,  399, 413, 421, 426, 435, 436, 
438, 447, 450, 458, 463, 480, 485, 493,  497, 
499,  503,  513,  519,  524,  526,  528,  566,  615, 
616, 617,  618,  619,  620,  621,  622,  623,  624, 
625,  626,  627, 628,  630,  644,  645,  647,  648, 
649, 650, 651, 652,  653,  654,  655,  656,  657, 
658,  659,  660,  661,  662. 

Birthplace,  253,  254,  255,  256,  257,  258, 
259,  261,  262,  265. 

Coat  of  arms,  34,  77,  621. 

Death  masks,  the  Becker,  243;  the 
Stratford,  243,  244. 

Gloves,  162,  247,  264,  265. 

Hair,  lock  of,  267. 

Ireland  forgeries,  266,  267,  268. 

Portraits,  statues,  etc.;  the  Ashbourne, 
234,  235;  Becker's,  243;  Burn's,  240; 
Chandos',  227,  228,  229,  230,  246;  Droes- 
hout's,  72,  73,  224,  227,  229,  231,  234, 
235, 238,  239,  241,  244,  245,  248,  250,  251, 
277,  308;  Dugdale's,  246,  247,  248;  the 
Dulwich,  233;  the  Ely  House,  238;  the 
Felton,  227,  228,  229,  231,  233;  the 
Flower,  238,  245;  the  Grafton,  235;  Gave- 
lot's,  247;  Gower's,  248;  Grignion's,  247; 
the  Holder,  30,  236,  240,  241;  the  Janssen, 
233,  234,  235,  245;  the  Jennings,  239; 
Johnson's,  245;  Kneller's,  230,  231;  the 
marriage  picture,  241;  the  Roubillac,  248; 
Sanders',  236;  in  Stratford  Church,  238, 
245,  253;  Virtue,  247;  the  Winstanley, 
240;  the  Zincke,  30,  236,  240,  241;  the 
Zoust,  237;  the  Zucchero,  236. 

Seal  ring,  263,  264. 

Signatures  of,  269,  270,  271,  272,  273, 
274,  275,  277,  278,  279,  280,  282,  284, 
285,  290,  291,  293. 

Silver  gilt  bowl,  54,  265. 

Tombstone,  93,  251,  252,  522,  655. 


INDEX 


Will,  265,  269,  276,  277,  279,  280,  281, 

283,  287,  288,  291. 
Shakspere's  Company,  52,  5^. 
Shapleigh,  652,  664. 
Sharpe,  R.  F.,  648. 

Shaw,  Mr. ,  93,  94. 

Shaw,  Bernard,  62. 
Shea,  John  Gilmary,  543. 
Sheffield,  Douglass,  596. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  63,  357. 
"Shepherd's  Calendar,  The,"   15,   17,   66, 

454,  456,  459,  460,  470,  509,  558. 
Sheppard,  Thomas,  648, 
Shillingford,  John,  36. 
Shotbolt,  420. 
Shottery,  57,  621. 
Shropshire,  228. 
Siam,  551. 

Siddons,  Mrs.  Sarah,  247. 
Sidney,  Sir  Henry,  454,  461. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  xxv,  7, 14,  16,  87, 121, 

388,  389. 
Siegle,  A.,  649. 
Sigismund,  Count,  495. 
Simancas  MSS.,  9. 
Sinnett,  A.  P.,  662. 

"Sir  Charles  Clyomon  and  Clamydes," 
"Sir  John  Oldcastle,"  no,  112,  135, 

164,  167,  170. 
"Sir  Simon  Two  Shares,  and  a  Halfe,' 

82. 
Skottowe,  Augustine,  122. 

Sloman, ,  228. 

Slv,  Christopher,  398,  399. 

Sly,  William,  168. 

Smedley,  William  T.,  104, 413,  414, 415, 

423,514,516,630,634,649. 
Smith,  F.  B.  v.,  663. 
Smith,  G.,  649,  663. 
Smith,  John,  655. 
Smith,  Capt.  John,  74. 
Smith,  Lucy  Toulmin,  643. 
Smith,  D.  Nichol,  43. 
Smith,  Sir  Thomas.  7,  167,  170 
Smith,  William,  170. 
Smith,  William,  of  Stratford,  263. 
Smith,  William  Henry,  xxvi,  xxvii,  249, 

649,653,663. 
Smyth,  William,  38. 
Snitter-Field,  258. 
Socrates,  422. 

Sogliardo,  77,  78,  79>  81,  96. 
Solomon's  House,  401. 
"  Solyman  and  Perseda,"  118 
Somers,  John,  625. 
Somers,  William,  97,  513. 
Somerset,  Countess  of,  626. 
Somerset,  Duchess  of,  613. 
Somerset,  Earl  of,  625,  626. 
Sonnets,  Bacon's,  624,  643. 
Sonnets,  Shakspere's,  xxi,  20,94,  Ii7> 

149,  150,  151,  214,  316,  378,  379,  384, 

450,  455,  539,  640,  642,  644,  650,  659, 


306, 


478. 
163, 

'S3, 


422, 


639, 


148, 
386, 
660. 


Sonnets,  Spenser's,  455,  456,  469. 

Sothern,  Edward  H.,  663. 

Soto,  Hernando,  503. 

Southampton  Correspondence,  267. 

Southampton,  Earl  of,  49,  55,  60,  67,  68,  69, 
70,  99,  233,  240,  376,  489,  552,  559,  608, 
618,  619,  625. 

Southwell,  Edward,  40. 

Spain,  xix,  xx,  3,  5,  8,  139,  317,  335,  506, 
527,  528,  634. 

Spain,  King  of,  527,  608. 

Spanish  Tragedy,  The,  118,  485. 

"Spectator,  The,"  229. 

Spedding,  James,  xxvi,  30, 76,  297,  299,  305, 
310,  311,  312,  319,  320,  321,  332,  334,  337, 
341,  342,  351,  354,  355,  358,  359,  360,  361, 
363,  399, 400, 401, 410, 436, 477,  499,  5oo, 
521,  533,  605,  606,  607, 619,  623,  627,  629, 
649,  663. 

Speed,  John,  334,  ^ 

Spelman,  Lady  Elizabeth,  612. 

Spence,  Joseph,  547,  548. 

Spencer,  Gabriel,  70. 

Spencer,  Hugh,  203. 

Spencers,  the,  204. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  ist,  438,  439. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  2d,  438,  439. 

Spenser,  Edmund  (Colin),  xxi,  16,  17,  87,  88, 
89,  90,  174,  307,  310,  345,  352,  371,  388, 
389, 41 1, 412, 414, 425, 427,  438,  439, 440, 
441, 442,  443, 444, 445, 446, 447,  448,  449, 
452, 453, 454, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 
462, 463, 464, 465, 466,  467,  468, 472,  474, 
475, 480,  508,  509,  523,  554,  559, 561,  574, 
583. 

Spenser,  F.  F.,  438. 

Spenser,  Florence,  439. 

Spenser,  James,  441. 

Spenser,  John,  438,  439,  440,  447,  448. 

Spenser,  Robert,  438. 

Spenser,  Sylvanus,  452,  453. 

Spurcock,  Sir  Lancelot,  177,  178. 

"Stage  Plays  and  their  Evils,"  11. 

Stapfer, ,  xxvii. 

Stanton,  H.,  284. 

States  of  the  Church,  495. 

Staunton,  Howard,  123,  617. 

Stearns,  Charles  W.,  649. 

Stedman,  E.  C,  663. 

Steel,  C.  F.,  649. 

Steevens,  George,  33,  35,  43,  69,  71,  72,  loi, 
103, 113, 126,  130,  134,  145,  160, 161, 170, 
226,  228,  229,  234,  245,  252,  270,  272,  278, 
281,  283,  293. 

Steeves,  G.  Walter,  649. 

Stevens,  Henry,  634. 

Stephen,  H.  L.,  603,  604. 

Stephen,  L.,  663. 

Stewart,  Mrs.  Hinton,  649. 

StiUwell,  C.  B.,  649. 

Stoddard,  W.  L.,  649,  663. 

Stone,  Nicholas,  443,  444,  446,  447. 

Stony  Stratford,  509. 


683 


INDEX 


Stopes,  Charlotte  C,  649. 

Storojenko,  P.,  649,  663. 

Stotzenburg,  J.  H.,  649. 

Stow,  John,  442,  445,  446,  447. 

Strachey,  William,  489. 

Strang,  M.  W.,  649. 

Strange's  Servants,  The,  50,  618. 

Stranguage,  Wil,  xxiii,  429. 

Strasburg,  430. 

Stratford,  XXV,  xxvi,  xxix,  14, 17,20,21,22,25, 
28,  32,  35,  36,  38,  39,  40,  41,  42,  45,  46,  48, 
50,  51,  52,  53,  54,  55,  56,  57,  58,  59,  60,  62, 
63,  64,  66,  82,  83,  88,  91,  93,  99,  116,  145, 
155, 158,  232,  236,  238,  241,  247,  251,  254, 

255,  256,  257,  259,  260,  261,  262,  263,  266, 
272,  276,  279,  288,  291,  303,  374, 438,  463, 
484, 493, 497,  509,  513,  615,  618,  624,  62s, 
626,  629,  645,  646,  648,  658. 

Bacillus,  234. 

Birthplace  of  Shakspere,  253,  254,  255, 

256,  257,  258,  259,  261,  262,  265,  291,  292, 

634- 

Birthplace  Trustees,  238,  244. 
Books  in,  42,  51,  61,  158. 
Chapel  Street,  620. 
Church  Yard,  263. 
Conflagrations  in,  254,  261. 
Free  School,  37,  41,  42,  51. 
Garrick  Jubilee,   236,   256,   260,   265, 
266. 
Grammar  School,  281,  616. 
Greenhill,  255,  259,  260. 
Hell  Lane,  257. 

Henley  Street,  253,  254,  255,  256,  257, 
258,  259,  260,  264,  265. 
Holy  Cross  Chapel,  37. 
Holy  Trinity  Church,  245. 
Houses  in,  254,  260,  261. 
Memorial  Gallery,  237. 
Myths,  265. 

New  Place,  34,  58,  59,  60,  69,  154,  230, 
262,  263,  620,  622,  623,  626,  628. 
Privy  Council,  254. 
Shakspere's  Crab  Tree,  45. 
Shakspeare  Library,  266. 
Tombstone  inscriptions,  93,  251,  252, 
522,655. 
Vicar  of,  44. 

Winter's  plan,  256-257,  258. 
Wool  shop,  the,  253,  254,  257,  265. 
Stratford  actor,  The.    See  Shakspere,  Wil- 
liam. 
Stratford  Cult,  Stratfordians,  xxviii,  31,  45, 
55,  63,  88,  93,  98,  114,  128,  140,  143,  148, 
154,  156,  158,  161,  234,  238,  245,  259,  261, 
262,  269,  270,  273,  276,  280,  292,  296,  346, 
377, 413, 415,  469, 484,  500,  503,  504,  505, 
^  507,  534,  544,  552,  579,  600,  614. 
Stronach,  George,  429,  649, 663. 
Strowski,  Fortunate,  422. 
Strutt,  Joseph,  226. 
Strype,  John,  13,  445. 
Strzelecki,  Adolf,  649. 


Stuart,  House  of,  556. 

Stuart,  Mary.  See  Mary,  Queen  of  Scotland. 

Stuart  Reign,  The,  v,  224,  364. 

Stubbes,  Philip,  11. 

Stubbs,  John,  6,  439. 

Studentskaia,  E.,  663. 

Sturley,  Abraham,  57,  59. 

Styria,  494,  495. 

Suffolk,  England,  443. 

Suffolk,  Duke  of,  516. 

Sullivan,  Sir  Edward,  658,  663. 

Surat,  551. 

Surrey,  Earl  of,  516. 

Surrey,  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of,  352. 

Surtees,  Scott,  650. 

Sussex,  Earl  of,  372. 

Sutton,  Rev.  W.  A.,  650. 

Swabia,  495. 

Swalley,  551. 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  397. 

"  Sweet  Swan  of  Avon,  The,"  74,  y6,  jy. 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  179,  663. 

Sydney,  Sir  Henry,  9. 

"Sylva  Sylvarum,"  500,  501,  502,  562. 

Sylvester,  Josuah,  389. 

Symmons,  Charles,  33,  246. 

Sympson, ,  a  Jew,  511,  618. 

T.,  p.,  650. 

Tacitus,  Cornelius,  372,  376,  586. 

Talbot, ,  400. 

Tamberlaine,  399,  464,  467,  468,  481,  482. 
"Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,"  98,  104,  113, 

115,  125,  126,  127,  128,  129,  148,  357,  398, 

399,  480,  482,  483,  617. 
"Tamora  and  Andronici,"  115. 
Tarbeck,  43. 

Tarlton,  Richard,  87,  88,  629. 
Tasso,  Torquato,  236. 
Taverner,  Prof.  J.  W.,  650, 
Taylor,  John,  232,  388,  389,  390. 
Taylor,  Joseph,  230. 
"Tempest,  The,"  21,    104,    132,    153,   344, 

434,  489,  625. 
Temple  Grafton,  46,  617. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  663. 
Terence,  346,  347. 
Terentius  Lucanus,  346. 
Tetzlaff,  A.,  650. 
Thales,  xxv. 

Thayer,  William  R.,  650,  663. 
Theaters,  see  under  London. 
Thebes,  King  of,  186. 
Theobald,  Lewis,  iii,  117,  130. 
Theobald,  Robert  M.,  207,  208,  650,  663. 
Theobald,  William,  650. 
Theseus,  185,  186,  187,  188,  189,  190,  191, 

193- 
Thetmore,  Lord,  461. 
"Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,"  no,  163,  167, 

168,  169,  170,  177. 
Thompson,  Dr.  William,  639. 
Thomson,  William,  651. 


684 


INDEX 


Thornbury,  594. 

Thorne,  W.  H.,  663. 

Thorpe,  Thomas,  149. 

Thorpe,  W.  G.,  90,  IS4,  IS6,  i59,  296,  651, 
663. 

Thrasimachus,  173. 

Throckmorton  Manuscript,  61 1, 

Thumb  Marks,  489. 

Thumm,  see  Kintzel-Thumm,  Magdalen. 

Thurston,  Rev.  Herbert,  577,  578,  579,  663. 

Thynee,  Frances,  613. 

Thaynne,  Rev.  Lord  John,  613. 

Thaynne,  Thomas,  Viscount  Weymouth, 
613. 

Tidder,  Frances,  652. 

Tidder,  Tidir,  Robert,  610,  611. 

Tides,  498. 

Tieck,  Ludwig,  127,  163,  167,  170,  177,  179, 
480. 

Timmins,  Samuel,  123,  124,  156,  651,  653. 

"Timon  of  Athens,"  105,  136,  137,  152,  184. 

Title-pages,  418,  637. 

Titmarsh, ,  651. 

"Titus  Andronicus,"  98,  100,  104,  105,  no, 
1 14,  116,  117,  118,  148,  478,  527,  561,  616, 
622. 

Todd,  Henry  John,  439. 

Tolman,  A.  H.,  663. 

Tolstoy,  Leo,  31,  62,  63. 

Torquemada,  Thomas  de,  407. 

Touse, ,  458. 

Towne,  E.  C,  663. 

Townsend,  George  H.,  xxvii,  625,  651. 

"Tragedies  and  Comedies  made  of  one  Al- 
phabet," 620. 

"Tragedy  of  Arthur,  The,"  617. 

"Treaties  of  Melancholic,"   486,  487,  488, 

527,  544. 
Tree,  Beerbohm,  108. 
Trelawny  Papers,  410. 
Trithemius,4i3,  418. 
Tritons,  The,  501 ,  502. 
"Troia,  Britanica,"  91. 
"Troilus  and  Cressida,"  97,  104,  152,  509, 

624. 

Trotter,  ,  462. 

"Troublesome  'Reign  of   King  John,"  see 

"King  John." 
Troynovant,  174. 
True,  Prof.  Latham,  502,  634. 
"True  Tragedy,  The,"  98. 
Trundell,  John,  122. 
Tschischwitz,  160. 
Tubingen  University,  414. 
Tudor,  old  spelling  of  the  name,  610,  611. 
Tudors,  times  of  the,  xix,  i,  2,  6,  55,  114, 

224,  364,  397,  426. 
TuUidge,  E.  W.,  664. 
Tupper,  Martin  Farquhar,  357. 
Turberville,  George,  440. 
Tuscany,  Grand  Duke  of,  320. 
Twain,  54,  639. 
Tweeds,  the,  391. 


"Twelfth  Night,"  95,  104,  357,  555. 

Twickenham,  521,  618,  619,  621,  622. 

Twickenham  Park,  638. 

Twine,  Lawrence,  135. 

"Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  104,  119,  120, 

131,  132,497,  616,  618. 
"Two  Noble  Kinsmen,"  in,  184,  185. 
Tyburn,  70. 
Tyler,  Dame,  44. 
Tyndall,  John,  344. 
Tyrol,  Count  of,  495. 
Tytler  Papers,  611. 

Udall,  W.,  xxiii. 

Ulrici,  Dr.  Hermann,  116,  167,  208. 

Ulster,  461. 

University  of  Nebraska,  274. 

"Upon  the  Effigies,"  536. 

Upton,  John,  31,  115,  120. 

Usher,  Arland,  461. 

Vaile,  E.  O.,  664. 

Vantrollier,  Thomas,  316. 

Varance,  B.,  664. 

Vasari,  Giorgio,  492,  493. 

Vaughan,  William,  481. 

"Velarius,  Terminus,"  623. 

Velasquez,  335. 

Venice,  177,  505,  617. 

"Venus  and  Adonis,"  16,  44,  61,  68,  84,  99, 
100,  154,  239,  515,  617,  618,  645. 

Verona,  497. 

Versailles,  506. 

Vertue,  George,  247,  443. 

Verulam,  Baron,  see  Bacon,  Francis. 

Victoria,  Queen,  349,  652. 

Vienna,  617. 

Villemain,  M.  J.,  664. 

Villiers,  George,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  322, 
323,  326,  329,  335,  349,  507,  629. 

Villiers,  Katherine,  Duchess  of  Bucking- 
ham, 323. 

Vince,  C.  A.,  655. 

Vinton,  A.  D.,  664. 

Virgil,  130,  306,  506,  544,  561. 

Virgil  in  Poetic  Art,  A,  62. 

Virginia,  344,  552,  624. 

Virginia  Company,  The,  552,  625. 

"Visions  of  Bodies,  The,"  489. 

Vitzthum  von  Eckstaedt,  C.  F.,  651. 

"Vortgerne,"  268. 

Vossius,  Conradus,  388,  389. 

Vossius,  Gerardus,  388,  389. 

Wadeson,  Anthony,  52. 
Wagstaffe,  420. 
Waite,  A.  S.,  395,  401,  404. 
Waites,  A.,  664. 
Walcott,  J.,  664. 
Waldenses,  the,  406. 
Wales,  337. 

Walker, ,  167. 

Walker,  William,  625. 


68s 


INDEX 


Wallace,  A.  R.,  664. 

Wallace,  Prof.  Charles  W.,  64,  269, 274,  276, 

280,  284,  295,  642,  660,  662,  664. 
Wallace,  P.  M.,  664. 
Walpole,  Horace,  337,  357,  443,  444. 
Walsh,  James  J.,  303,  340,  341. 
Walsh,  W.  S.,  664. 

Walsingham, ,  521. 

Walton,  Judge, ,  293. 

Walton,  Isaac,  89. 
Warburton,  John,  195. 
Warburton,  William,  131. 
Ward,  John,  247,  264. 
Ward,  Rev.  John,  39,  40,  43,  44,  49. 
Ware,  William  R.,  634. 
Warner,  Sir  Charles,  613. 
Warner  Ring,  the,  613,  614. 

Warwick, ,  197,  204,  213,  214,  2l8. 

Warwickshire,  38,  41,  43,  46,  66,  115,  127, 

246,253,484,509,617. 
Warwickshire,  Charlecot,  43. 
Warwickshire  Dialect,  78. 
Warwickshire  Peasantry,  60. 
Washington,  D.C.,  "Republic,  The,"  653. 
Wateley,  Anne,  46. 
Water-Marks,  406,  408,  409,  410,  411. 
Waters,  Henry  Fitz-JQilbert,  116,  484. 
Waters,  Robert,  150,  651. 
Watts,  Gilbert,  533. 
Weaver,  John,  622. 
Webb,  E.,  664. 
Webb,  T.  E.,  651. 
Webster,  John,  16,  66,  107. 
Weeks,  Edward,  153. 
Weever,  John,  107. 
Weiss,  John,  651. 
Welcombe,  57,  58. 
Weldon,  Sir  Anthony,  508,  621. 
Wellstood,  Fred.  C,  292,  634. 
Wendell,  Barrett,  71. 

West, ,  288. 

West  India,  613. 

West  Indies,  625. 

Westminster,  see  under  London. 

Weymouth,  Viscount.  S<f<fThaynne,  Thomas. 

Wheeler,  John,  38. 

Wheeler,  Robert  Bell,  261. 

Whetstone,  George,  454. 

Whipple,  Edwin  P.,  xxv. 

White,  Rev.  Andrew,  534. 

White,  F.  M.,  651. 

White,  Horace,  108. 

White,  R.  C,  664. 

White,  Richard  Grant,  xxvii,  22,  33,  42,  49, 

51,  54, 69,  86,  99,  120,  122, 135, 136, 160, 

246,  482,  483,  651. 
White,  T.  W.,  651. 
Whitgift,  Archbishop  John,  47,  305,  515, 

596. 
Whitman,  Sidney,  63. 
Whitman,  Walt,  xxv,  357. 
Whitney,  Geoffrey,  503,  517. 
Whittier,  John  G.,  xxv,  xxviii. 


Whittington,  Thomas,  48. 

Wieland,  Christoph  Martin,  348. 

Wigand,  Otto,  285. 

Wigston,  W.  C.  F.,  399,  401,  651. 

Wilde,  Sir  James  Plaisted,  xxviii,  22,  31. 

Wilde,  Oscar,  149. 

Wilkes,  George,  650,  652. 

Wilkins,  George,  136. 

Willis,  W.,  652. 

Willobie,  Henry,  100. 

Wilmecote,  34. 

Wilson,  Mr. ,  167,  629. 

Wilson,  W.  E.,  92. 

Wilton,  296,  453. 

Wilton,  Pembroke  House,  623. 

Wilton,  Lord,  xx. 

Winchell,  Prof. ,  xxv,  xxviii. 

Winchelsea,  Earl  of,  613. 
Winchelsea,  Mary,  Countess  of,  613. 
Winchester,  331,  623. 
Winchester,  Bishop  of,  441,  442. 
Wincot,  484. 

Windle,  Mrs.  C.  F.  Ashmead,  652. 
Winsor,  Justin,  652,  664. 

Winstanley, ,  174. 

Winstanley, ,  auctioneer,  240. 

Winter,  W.,  664. 

Winter's  plan,  256-257,  258. 

"Winter's  Tale,  The,"  21, 24, 104, 153, 492, 

493,  494»  495,  496. 
Winwood,  Sir  Ralph,  322,  601,  602. 
"Wit's  Miserie,"  121. 
Wither,  George,  389. 
Wolsey,  Cardinal  Thomas,  168,  516,  549. 
Wood,  Anthony  A.,  440. 
Woodberry,  G.  E.,  664. 
Woodward,  Parker,  634. 
Worcester,  47. 
Wordsworth,  William,  62. 
"Works  of  Recreation,"  620. 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  594. 
Wright,  J.,  484. 
Wright,  Thomas,  12. 
Wriothesley,  Henry,  378. 
Wyat,  Sir  Thomas,  352. 
Wycombe,  see  High  Wycombe. 
Wyman,  W.  H.,  653. 
Wulker,  V.  R.,  664. 


Xenophon,  299. 


Yardley, 


128,  348. 


Yates,  Edward,  521. 
Yeatman,  John  Pyne,  280. 

Yelverton, ,  625. 

York,  House  of,  426. 

"Yorkshire  Tragedy,  A,"  1 10, 135, 175,  179, 

624. 
Younge,  Dr. ,  444. 

Zincke, ,  30,  236,  240,  241. 

Zoust, ,  237. 

Zucchero, ,  236. 


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